The sudden flood in August on the Nepal border with China resulted from a combination of climate and geological elements stimulated by global warming, pointing out a study released on Thursday.
© Lusa
17/09/2026
by
Lusa
The collapse of a block of ice and rocks from Mount Langtang Lirung formed a huge stream of water, ice and waste that rushed through the valleys, leading everything ahead.
The World Weather Attribution study explains that the catastrophe did not result from an extreme weather phenomenon, but from a “combination of elements” resulting from rising temperatures, melting ices and geological instability.
The region suffered “fundamental and irreversible changes”, stressed one of its authors, hydrologist Walter Immerzeel of the University of Utrecht, the Netherlands, adding that the retreat of glaciers and the ‘permafrost’ – the layer of soil that remains cold – had compromised the stability of the mountain.
“ We concluded that this inclination was geologically unstable, perhaps because of the earthquake of 2015, and that it was amplified by the retraction of the glacier and the ‘permafrost’,” Immerzeel pointed out, in statements to journalists.
The study confirmed that the months of July and August 2026 were the hottest ever recorded in the region and that the strong snowfalls at the end of 2025 increased the volume of melted water.
“There is no doubt that climate change was one of the engines” of the disaster, considered Friederike Otto, a climatologist at Imperial College, London.
“Bhote Koshi’s (rio) catastrophe is a brutal warning of the growing risks to the rapid warming of Himalaya subjecting populations”, specified another author of the study, Manjeet Dhakal, from Climate Analytics South Asia.
In Nepal, floods killed more than 1,400 people, with 6,150 other people reported missing. In China, the balance is 43 dead and 519 missing.
The Nepali government has estimated the cost of material reconstruction at $4.78 billion.