Nepal floods: “Rapid warming will make deadly glacial floods more common”
A week after the catastrophic flash floods that killed more than 1300 lives and left 5,500 others missing, the Nepal government blamed China, US and India for the disaster stating that they are the largest greenhouse gas emitters and demanded “climate justice” and $20m in ‘climate compensation’ from these countries.
Nepal contributes less than 0.1% of global greenhouse gas emissions. A UN report in 2003 had said Nepal’s mountains had lost close to a third of their ice in just over 30 years due to global heating.
The 26 August tragedy on the Nepal-China border has raised time-worn questions about the environmental impacts of human greed and utter insensitivity toward nature. Global warming, melting ice and rising seas are serious issues which we keep ignoring time and again even though scientists have repeatedly warned us.
It’s very unfortunate that we have not learnt from the Asian tsunami, the deadliest natural disaster of the 21st century, that struck East and south-east Asia on the Boxing Day in 2004, killing 2,27,898 people.
The disaster in Nepal was initially linked to what was thought to be an earthquake, but the US Geological Survey (USGS) later pointed to a ‘glacial collapse’ and ice-rock avalanche on the Tibetan side of the border as the trigger. “The debris flow and flooding travelled nearly 100km and impacted populated areas downstream along the Lende Khola and Trishuli Khola rivers, including the Rasuwadaghi border between China and Nepal,” said the USGS on its website on the 28th of August.
“The slope failure involving a glacier generated energy equivalent to a 5.2M earthquake. A second seismic event was recorded approximately 3- hours later, generating energy equivalent to M 4.2 earthquake,” the USGS website added.
Jason Gulley, a professor of geology at the University of South Florida, who took part in as many as six expeditions in Nepal over the last two decades, said: “In many catastrophic floods in the Himalayas, glacier lakes are to blame. But, while the last month’s flash floods had a massive landslide, there didn’t appear to be any glacier lakes below it, making it a bit of an anomaly and this must be studied intensely in the coming years.”
Some scientists, however, speculated, Prof Gulley added, that the impact of a piece of glacier tumbling down 4,000 ft vertically could have pulverized the ice into water.
According to him, there will be more floods in future and some may be far worse than the August 26 catastrophe.
“Unless the carbon dioxide emissions that are heating the planet are curbed, warming across High Mountain Asia, a broad region encompassing the Himalayas, Karakorum, Pamir, Hindu Kush and Tien Shan, will erase as much as 75 per cent of the remaining glaciers by 2100,” Prof Gulley warned.
“Melt water pooling behind moraines (a scientific term for piles of rocky debris) and in depressions exposed by the ice will transform thousands of glaciers into large lakes, each one a potential ticking bomb for vulnerable communities downstream,” Prof Gulley said.
Disaster comes leaving a trail of terrifying devastation. Rescue operations begin; relief measures are undertaken and aids arrive. Tears of those who have lost their loved ones slowly get dried up as life limps back to normal. That we are so helpless in the face of nature’s fury never worries us. Every time a tragedy strikes and countless lives are lost, we hardly learn any lesson from it; we just remain indifferent and keep plundering nature. When will we realize the catastrophic consequences of global warming and deadly impact of rising seas?
The mountains of the Himalayas– which spans across India, China, Nepal and Bhutan—have been warming at a rate nearly 50% faster than the global average.
If we really care for humanity and our planet, let’s take a pledge once for all, get our act together and save the world.
Are world leaders listening?
