Climate hazard from Nepal glacier collapse

The flash flood disaster caused by a glacier burst in the Nepal border area caused nearly 800 deaths and 2,500 people missing, according to confirmation from Nepali and Chinese officials on the morning of August 29.

According to the US Geological Survey (USGS), this flash flood originated from a glacier collapse. This natural disaster was so intense that it generated energy equivalent to a 5.2 magnitude earthquake, causing a series of landslides.

Talk to AFPMr. Etienne Berthier, a glacier research expert at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), warned of the risk of similar phenomena occurring in other glaciers. And Mr. Tristram Hales, professor of environmental hazards at Cardiff University (UK), noted the increasing number of glacier collapse disasters globally over the past decade.

Three months ago, a glacier collapsed near the village of Blatten, Switzerland, causing a landslide, burying an entire village on the edge of the Alps. Previously, local authorities issued an early warning order and evacuated about 300 people and all livestock, limiting human damage. More than 200 km away, the municipality of Randa – home to 400 people – is concerned about the risk of glacier collapse, when large chunks of the Weisshorn East hanging glacier separated three times on August 24.

In Italy, in 2022, a block of ice equivalent to an apartment building on the Marmolada glacier (Dolomite mountain range) separated during a summer heat wave, causing landslides and rocks falling on the climbing area, killing 11 people.

In 2016, a glacier in the Aru Mountains of Tibet (China) suddenly collapsed, killing 9 people. A similar incident took place here just a few months later.

Scientists warn that the probability of landslides and rockslides due to melting permafrost is increasing due to climate change. Lonnie Thompson, a glacier expert at Ohio State University (USA), said that glacier collapse is sometimes “surprisingly fast”. “The instability of these glaciers is becoming more and more serious, endangering thousands of people,” he said.

Previously, melting glaciers were often associated with the risk of sea level rise. However, scientists say that threats on land also need to be properly recognized, as they seriously affect people, when sweeping through towns, roads and tourist attractions in the area.

In some cases, this situation can be predicted in advance. Before the disaster, experts from CNRS said the partially melted glacier would form a lake downstream. Resonating with the ice avalanche at high altitude, the lake at the foot of the glacier will accumulate energy, releasing it all through a flood similar to a dam failure. This phenomenon is also known as glacial lake burst flood (GLOF).

In the Alps, Mr. Bernard Francou, former research director at the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD), said researchers are fully equipped and regularly monitor these lakes to check the risk of lake overflow or sudden drainage.

Analysts say that burning fossil fuels has caused global warming, enough to destroy many glaciers around the world. Glaciers in the Alps have lost 50% of their area since 1950, and the rate of melting is accelerating. Many forecasts say all the glaciers in the Alps could disappear within this century.

Switzerland, the country with the most glaciers in Europe, lost 4% of its total glacier volume in 2023. In the previous year, it lost 6%.

Peru also lost more than half of its glacier area in the past six decades. Between 2016 and 2020 alone, they lost 175 glaciers due to increasing average global temperatures.

According to research published by Science magazine, even if global temperatures remain stable at current levels, 40% of the world’s glaciers will still disappear. The amount of glaciers can be preserved if the global average temperature increase is kept at 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, as countries committed to in the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.