Outside an army camp in Nuwakot, Nepal, a crowd of people who have lost relatives waits anxiously.
Trembling fingers move down a list of names pasted on a wall—perhaps beside one of those names they will find news of a loved one. But as the list grows longer, the hours of waiting seem to become increasingly unbearable.
So far, 676 people have been killed in the devastating floods and glacial landslides along the Nepal-Tibet border. Nearly 3,000 people are missing—2,426 in Nepal and 554 in Tibet.
Rescue operations are underway, but because of the mountainous terrain, mud, and debris, every passing hour is now a struggle between hope and fear.
It is easy to dismiss this disaster simply as a “natural calamity,” but scientists are not pointing us toward such an easy explanation.
Although an earthquake was initially thought to have caused the disaster, subsequent analysis of seismic data and satellite imagery has shown that a massive collapse of glaciers and rocks high on Langtang Lirung Mountain triggered the devastating flow of water. The question is: why did the glacier become so unstable?
The most important question lies hidden within that answer. According to scientists, unusually high temperatures weakened the bonds between ice and rock, water entered cracks, and the stability of the mountain was compromised.
Glaciers are melting, permafrost is thawing, and the very ice that had long helped hold the mountains together is gradually losing its grip. The disaster in Nepal is merely a terrifying manifestation of this much longer process.
Therefore, the question is not simply, “Why did the flood happen?” The question is: why are the mountains more unstable today than they were in the past? The answer leads us back to our civilization.
The enormous quantities of greenhouse gases we have released into the atmosphere by burning coal, oil, and gas are no longer affecting us merely as figures on temperature charts. That warming is altering the geography of the mountains.
Glaciers are shrinking, frozen ground beneath the ice is thawing, new lakes are forming, and the flow of rivers and the balance of water are changing.
The Himalayas are no longer merely a realm of ice; they are increasingly becoming a landscape of risk. And scientists concerned with the region believe that this risk will not stop at Nepal’s borders.
The rivers descending from Himalayan glaciers sustain the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people across Asia. Today, excessive melting may cause rivers to swell, while tomorrow, if those glaciers continue to diminish, water shortages may emerge.
In other words, climate change is simultaneously carrying the seeds of both floods and droughts. But responsibility does not end with promises to reduce the use of fossil fuels.
In mountains that have already become vulnerable, rapid-warning systems, monitoring of glaciers and glacial lakes, reassessment of vulnerable infrastructure, and disaster preparedness among local communities are essential.
Scientist Hamish Pritchard has warned that more avalanches and floods will come, and that the greater the number and size of lakes forming in front of glaciers, the greater the danger will become.
The disaster in Nepal has placed a brutal truth before us. The sound of a devastating flash flood in the mountains cannot always be heard in advance.
Sometimes it begins with a rise of just a few degrees in temperature, a tiny crack in a glacier, or the loosening of an invisible bond between rock and ice.
Then, one day, a powerful torrent of mud and water rushes down the mountain. And the relatives of those caught in the disaster search for their loved ones’ names on lists pasted to walls.
The disaster in Nepal, therefore, is not merely a matter of counting the dead and missing. It is also a report on the silent transformation of the mountains.
The Earth is warming, and the consequences of that warming are now visible even in the heart of the mountains. Nepal today; another valley tomorrow. Perhaps nature is sending us a warning—but are we taking that warning seriously?