Flood in Nepal has already claimed 9 lives, over 20 missing
Kyiv • UNN
The flood on the Bhote Koshi River in Nepal, which claimed at least nine lives and left over two dozen missing, was caused by the depletion of a glacial lake in Tibet. 19 people remain missing in Nepal and 11 in China, and the "Friendship Bridge" has been destroyed.
The deadly flood on the Bhote Koshi River in Nepal, which killed at least nine people and left more than two dozen missing this week, was caused by the depletion of a supraglacial lake in China's Tibet region, a regional climate monitoring body said on Wednesday, UNN reports with reference to Reuters.
Details
At least 19 people, including six Chinese workers from the Beijing-backed Inland Container Depot, remain missing in Nepal after Tuesday's floods, which also washed away the "Friendship Bridge" connecting Nepal and China.
China's official Xinhua news agency reported that 11 people were missing on the Chinese side of the mountainous border region.
The Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) said satellite images showed the flood originated from the drainage of a lake north of the Langtang Himal range in Nepal.
"This is based on a preliminary analysis of available satellite images," Sudan Maharjan, a remote sensing analyst and glacier expert at ICIMOD, told Reuters.
Supraglacial lakes form on the surface of glaciers. According to experts, they often start as small melt ponds that gradually expand and sometimes merge to form a larger supraglacial lake.
Saswata Sanyal, another ICIMOD official, said that similar phenomena are becoming more frequent at an unprecedented rate in the Hindu Kush mountains, located in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal, and Pakistan.
"We need to study deeper the causes that lead to cascading effects," Sanyal said.
Addition
Monsoons in June-September cause widespread floods and landslides in mountainous Nepal. According to officials and experts, the region is vulnerable to such climate change impacts as extreme weather conditions, irregular precipitation, flash floods, landslides, and glacial lake outburst floods.
This year, early monsoon rains have caused deadly damage to other areas of Nepal: according to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority, at least 38 people have died or gone missing since May 29.