China · Axios
Why Nepal's rare, deadly flood struck without warning
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Thousands of people are missing and hundreds are dead after a flash flood in Nepal that struck with little warning earlier this week.
Key facts
- Stunning stat: The flow traveled roughly 100 kilometers (about 62 miles)
- Nepali officials said Saturday nearly 3,000 people are missing from the Nepal-China region impacted by the floods that formed in the Himalayan mountains on Wednesday, per the Associated Press
- What they found: The U.S. Geological Survey says that a section of a glacier and mountain debris collapsed on the north side of Lāngtāng Lirung, creating energy comparable to a magnitude- 5.2
- The disaster mainly hit the Tibet region's Gyirong County and the Rasuwa district in northern Nepal, which sits on the Tibetan border
Summary
The flood is exposing the gaps in warning systems that are designed to watch out for extreme rain and rivers, not for sudden collapses high in the mountains during good weather. Glacier-driven floods under clear skies, sometimes called "blue-sky floods", can happen in the U.S. too, especially in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest, where sudden releases of glacial water can send floods and debris racing down mountain valleys. This happened at Mount Rainier in Washington state in 2001, when debris flow from a glacier-related hazard caught people off guard during fair weather. Nepali officials said Saturday nearly 3,000 people are missing from the Nepal-China region impacted by the floods that formed in the Himalayan mountains on Wednesday, per the Associated Press.