A Sherpa village in Nepal’s Everest region has been engulfed by avalanches, officials said.
Experts suspect that Thame – at an altitude of around 3,800m – is inundated after a glacial lake burst its banks. Scientists have warned that climate change is causing many glaciers in the Himalayas to melt at an alarming rate.
No deaths or injuries were reported, but more than ten buildings including houses, a school and a health clinic were destroyed by Friday’s floods.
Thame is home to many record-holding Sherpa mountaineers and is the birthplace of Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, the first person to climb Mount Everest and explorer Edmund Hillary.
Videos show foamy, milky water flowing through the valley in floods turned brown by mud and debris.
The spokesman for the Nepalese army, Gaurav Kumar KC, told AFP that 15 houses had been washed away, while rescue teams were helping people to safety.
Local authorities said bad weather prevented the use of helicopters during their investigation, adding that they planned to fly into the mountains on Saturday morning.
Although the cause of the flood is unknown, Arun Bhakta Shrestha, a climate change expert at the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) said there are “indications” that it was the result of a glacial lake outburst and they are working to confirm it. .
Scientists have warned that Himalayan glaciers are melting due to climate change and creating glacial lakes, often buried by loose rock and debris, making them unstable and prone to erosion.
Hundreds of glacial lakes formed as a result of melting glaciers have unknowingly appeared in the Himalayas in recent decades. According to the 2020 ICIMOD report, 2,070 were recorded in Nepal, 21 of which were classified as “potentially dangerous”.
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