Nepal landslides show the world’s mountains are ticking time bombs
Above 3,000m in the eastern Himalayas, landslides are now displacing five times more material than they were in the 1980s.
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Collapsed glaciers in Langtang, Nepal, that, according to an expert, may have triggered flash floods and a mudslide.
PHOTO: REUTERS
David Fickling
From the Apostle Paul to Ira Gershwin, mountains have for millennia been a symbol of immovable stability. A warming planet is undermining that, leaving landslides, floods and avalanches in its wake.
The apocalyptic scenes after Wednesday’s flash floods on the border between Nepal and China’s Tibet region are the latest example of the devastation that can result. At least 157 people have been confirmed dead and hundreds more are missing after a wall of mud and rock swept through valleys in the Himalayas, causing the Trishuli river to rise nine metres in half an hour.
