Worst-case glacial lake flood scenarios in a transboundary Himalayan basin 2022

ChiperSoft

Context: https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/26/world/live-news/nepal-flash-f...

madaxe_again

The debris flow that has just happened doesn’t appear to be a glacial outburst. Rather, the entire front face of a glacier at high elevation sheared off, likely millions of tonnes of material at least, crashed down a steep runnel, slammed into the opposing slope on the other side of the valley at the bottom, made that partially collapse, dammed the river for several minutes, and then all descended at high speed as the dam failed, with the results we see. Some reportage is still saying there was an earthquake - there wasn’t - the landslide itself was the source of the seismic waves. https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us7000tbwb...

inasio

Reminded me of the Huascaran avalanche (1970, killed approx 30K people) [0]. I'm surprised this is not also in the thousands of casualties (perhaps it'll get there) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1970_Huascar%C3%A1n_debris_ava...

jvanderbot

I believe this is how the Hudson Bay was formed, in what must have been quite a sight.

metalman

GLOF, glacial lake outburst flood. exceptionaly brutal cctv footage from the tibet/nepal border, so many people that there is a tiny chance that perhaps one of them was tossed clear, but of the rest there will be no remains. other videos shows that the flood "water" is so thick with mud that it is sheering off in sheets and one more shows it ripping out a concrete bridge that then floats away on top. *disturbing video https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rIVNeDuCF_k

mandeepj

In the future, don't go close to mountains during monsoon season - late May to August end; that period is specifically for Southeast Asia. For the rest of the world, you can find it out.

trompetenaccoun

>simulated worst-case outburst events from these lakes both in the Tibetan town of Nyalam and downstream at the border with Nepal For context that's not where the flood happened, there's a massive mountain range in between those vallies reaching over 8000m (Shishapangma). In earth science there are thousands of worst case scenario models published, but it's hard to actually predict reality.

vmh1928

Near Juneau, Alaska, USA, the Mendenhall glacier has repeatedly, over the last few years, had a Glacial Lake Outburst Flood. Not nearly as catastrophic as the one in Nepal but it did flood areas near Mendenhall River in Juneau. The latest event was August 13, 2026. https://www.weather.gov/ajk/suicidebasin

yolo3000

Reminded me of this documentary I saw last year - https://www.arte.tv/en/videos/122807-000-A/arte-reportage/ . I thought it was the same lake