Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA conducts regular “Office Hours” YouTube sessions where he discusses current climate issues and answers questions.
Last night I followed his discussion of this week’s Nepal Glacier disaster, and recorded some of the more striking and informative passages.
First one, above, contains some of the most triggering footage you may have already seen, with Swain’s admonition that, while difficult to watch, it is worthwhile as a reminder of the scale of forces the natural world can bring.
Second clip, Swain puts this week’s events into a more historical perspective, comparing similar disasters in other locations and times.
Below, Swain discusses astounding footage of a gigantic boulder being pushed along in the torrent. The forces involved are immense and irresistible.
Here it gets really interesting. Footage from a military chopper surveying the disaster area gives a clue as to what happened, and dismaying evidence of how populated this valley was, and the subsequent damage to homes and communities.
Finally, drone footage of what appears to be the ground zero origin of the event, with Swain’s best reconstruction of what happened.
The event is not over.
News agencies are reporting that further glacial dams have been observed upstream, one of them directly in the path of this week’s event, threatening rescuers and survivors.
More on this as it comes in.
Nepal and China resumed rescue operations that had been suspended briefly in the flood-hit Himalayas on Friday after risks from an overflowing lake were found to be manageable, easing fears of fresh devastation.
A glacier collapse on Wednesday unleashed a huge torrent of rock, ice, mud and debris through Himalayan mountain river systems, killing at least 579 people in Nepal and five in China’s Tibet.
There are 2,070 glacial lakes in Nepal, 21 of which are classified as high risk, according to a 2020 report by an intergovernmental body for mountain monitoring. There are many more glacial lakes in the surrounding Himalayan areas of China and India.