Flash floods on the Nepal–Tibet border have killed about 160 people and left hundreds missing, including international tourists, after a likely glacier-related landslide sent a destructive surge through the area. While investigators have not confirmed the precise cause, the disaster highlights how warming temperatures may be making Himalayan glaciers and surrounding mountain terrain less stable, increasing the risk of sudden, catastrophic floods.

Satellite images suggest a roughly 2,000-foot-wide mass of ice may have fallen nearly 4,000 feet, producing a debris flow powerful enough to register as a magnitude 5.2 seismic event. Nepal’s glaciers lost nearly a quarter of their area between 1970 and 2010, with more than 160 smaller glaciers disappearing; retreating ice can destabilise slopes and leave dammed lakes vulnerable to collapse. Scientists also point to summer meltwater and thawing alpine permafrost as factors that can compound glacier instability.