Nepalis are desperately searching for missing relatives in the Trishuli river valley. Their entire village was swept away in this week’s flood. They are rushing from place to place, hoping for any news of their loved ones. The report is from NDTV Online.
On the cause of the flood, mountaineer Sanjit Singh Bal said it was a glacier collapse. A glacier roughly one square kilometer in area, at an altitude of nearly 5,000 meters, broke off and came rushing down, picking up huge amounts of rock and mud as it plunged down the steep slope. Nepal Himalaya and mountain researcher Dhananjay Regmi said the flood water traveled at a speed of roughly 300 kilometers per hour. Three lakes have now formed in the area.
If another rockfall occurs, it could trigger another major disaster. To avoid this, the water accumulated in the lakes needs to be drained in a controlled manner. However, no such steps have been seen yet. What can be done for now is to move people to higher ground and wait.
Asked whether global warming played a role in the ice collapse, Ashutosh Mishra, managing partner at Snowscapes, said it was initially thought that a breach had formed in one of the three lakes. However, information obtained later showed the lakes were not primarily responsible. Satellite images confirmed that a northern glacier, roughly two square kilometers in area, collapsed from the 7,000-meter peak of Langtang Lirung.
But for flood survivors, finding missing relatives matters more right now than the cause of the flood or the risk of a second flood. One man, holding a photo of his missing brother, said: “Whether they’re our relatives or not, whoever is trapped must be saved. Even if they’re not our relatives, let others’ friends be saved too.” He added that only one of his brothers is missing, but that every other Nepali is also his brother.