Scientists interviewed by the BBC spoke about what could have caused this natural disaster.
Read more VERT: more favorable fuel price calculation for heat suppliers
A part of the glacier broke off
“On Wednesday, a colleague, examining satellite images, noticed that the lower part of the glacier near the flooded areas had disappeared – this indicates that some kind of ice avalanche or glacier collapse occurred,” says Simon Cook, a senior lecturer at the University of Dundee specializing in glacier research.
“I think some people thought it was an earthquake that caused the landslide, but our team includes a seismologist who is convinced that it was actually a collapsed glacier that hit the valley floor. This speaks to the truly massive scale of the event,” the scientist added.
S. Cook said that his entire team is “shocked by the scale of the disaster,” and noted that similar events have occurred elsewhere in recent years – in places like the Himalayas, Switzerland, and the Dolomite Mountains in Italy.
“But when you look at the pattern of these events, it seems that climate change may have played a role,” the scientist claimed.
S. Cook explained that global warming likely causes the thawing and degradation of permafrost, which partially holds together some mountain slopes.
Read more US senator accused Russia of attacks against US companies: Putin is doing it on purpose
This “destabilizes these high-altitude environments” and leads to more landslides, debris flows, glacial meltwater, lake breaches, and glacier collapses, he noted.
What happened
Footage from surveillance cameras on the Chinese border side shows how on Wednesday morning a huge wall of mud and debris crashes into a multi-story building and swallows it, while dozens of people below try to save their lives. The flow swept away buses and cars.
Nepal’s disaster management agency reported that more than a thousand people were still missing on Thursday.
Many of the missing are foreign tourists, officials said about the disaster, which, according to the US Geological Survey, was caused by a glacier collapse, resulting in debris flows flooding the areas along the way.
Read more Important news for residents of Klaipėda district: water bills will be received differently
