4 ms·

Anticipation is one thing, effective response in the seconds before disaster strikes is quite another thing. This might not have been an absolute black swan, b

Anticipation is one thing, effective response in the seconds before disaster strikes is quite another thing. This might not have been an absolute black swan, but even with foresight it is challenging in the extreme to avoid risk. I've been reviewing what coverage I can find of the present event in Nepal/China, in context with Section 5.1, "Comprehensive approach to disaster risk management", of TFA. It seems that what would be required would be: - Active surveillance of glacial lake formation. - Active mitigation of glacial lakes, reducing risk. - Warning and response infrastructure, procedures, and protocols along the likly flood path. From video of what I presume are among the worst-hit areas (see: <https://twitterwebviewer.com/?tweet=2092542957060841592 https://twitterwebviewer.com/?tweet=2092542957060841592>), there appear to have been at best a few seconds of warning. Very robust structures are demolished virtually instantly. Even had people been sheltering within those structures, or headed up-slope above the water flow, either structural integrity would prove insufficient, or response time inadequate to reach a safe elevation above the debris flow. The latter problem is compounded by what appears to be an extraordinarily strong air blast (likely hurricane-strength or greater) as well as massive amounts of airborne debris, much of it rock. Terrain is severely constrained in the region, and the only buildable regions are in river valleys themselves. The Gyirong Port border crossing is located deep within a river channel, and despite robust construction simply could not survive the event. See: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyirong_Port https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyirong_Port> (Wikipedia article on the port.) Map / satellite view: <https://www.google.com/maps/@28.2792579,85.3752907,1341m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!21m1!1s%2Fg%2F11nvhk0f7k?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDgyNS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/@28.2792579,85.3752907,1341m/dat...> (Take a few minutes to examine the region around the port itself ... there are several communities and businesses all well within the disaster zone, and I suspect that obliteration to those matches or exceeds what was captured on video at the crossing itself.) From the first video at this Twitter post, a camera situated roughly 20m above the base terrain did not survive the event (though it transmitted for roughly a minute). A second camera (I believe near the same location) shows similarly catastrophic damage, and no chance for anyone at base level to climb to a safe elevation before being overtaken by the debris flow. Wikipedia notes "Floodwaters reached settlements as high as 270 feet (80 m) above the river level", citing <https://english.onlinekhabar.com/rasuwa-flood-in-pictures.html https://english.onlinekhabar.com/rasuwa-flood-in-pictures.ht...>. Climbing that far would require 4--8 minutes for even a highly-fit person. Available response time in the videos I've seen is on the order of 1--2 minutes. Anyone beginning within the debris zone is already walking dead. As the Cowboy Junkies said: But if there's on thing in my life That these years have taught It's that you can always see it coming But you can never stop it Anticipation isn't sufficient. Other than entirely abandoning such locations during all periods of high risk, loss of life is likely, and catastrophic property and infrastructure damage inevitable. <https://twitterwebviewer.com/?tweet=2092542957060841592 https://twitterwebviewer.com/?tweet=2092542957060841592>

totetsu 1mo ago
When I was researching this morning I found papers related to this kind of risk from at least 2000. Given 20 years there could have been things done I think. And there is a lot of settlement on the tops of the ranges in that area too.. Maybe the roads have to be on the river valley, but not everything else. People living there could have been offered alternative land to move out of the path of it.. monitoring and early warning could have been set up.. at the checkpoint, if it had to be there, there could have been a big evacuation tunnel carved into the hillside, or something.. I guess Nepal doesn't have a lot of resources though. The same thing even happened a year ago in the sample place, but at a smaller size https://www.stimson.org/2025/investigating-an-emerging-climate-hazard-transboundary-glacial-floods-on-the-china-nepal-border/ https://www.stimson.org/2025/investigating-an-emerging-clima...
- lazide 1mo ago
  Flat lowland is great because it's cheap and easy to build on, and not a hassle to actually use. Ridgelines and slopes are terrible to build on (and often use) because there is little to no actual flat usable area without extensive construction. They also tend to be unstable and slide/erode. That said, if I was in that area, of course i'd never build/live on anything but the highest ridgeline or slope around. One of those 'long term/outlier risks cause daily costs' type of things. :s
- dredmorbius 1mo ago
  So, one of the most notably impacted locations to date has been the Gyirong port border crossing, noted in a couple of my earlier comments. Part of that is due to there being surveillance closed-circuit camera footage available, and there are other areas which would have been similarly affected. A few additional thoughts and facts have come to light: - The crossing was substantially renovated in January of this year following an earlier flood which washed out the bridge connecting the station (in China) to Nepal. - The crossing, part of China's Belt and Road Initiative (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative>), by needs must sit on the principal highway through the region. Which ... follows the river valley. Now, it's possible for that highway to be raised substantially off the valley floor, but consider that "inundations reached heights of 800m (2,600 ft) in a valley some 7km (4.3 mi) from the origin" (<https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20260827_22/ https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20260827_22/>, via Wikipedia). - The inundation reached the Gyirong port seven minutes after the initial avalanche. Even with absolutely timely warnings, that is only just barely enough time for a fit person to reach a safe elevation above the port itself. Wikipedia now mentions two people (of apparently hundreds present) being rescued from Gyirong port. - Early reconnaissance footage above the site of the former Gyirong port shows nothing but bare land. All of the apparently quite substantial structures on the site were simply scrubbed from existence. The forces involved are formidable. <https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202608/1369215.shtml https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202608/1369215.shtml> I believe that the end of this video shows post-incident video of the same site, though frankly it's unrecognisable. I'm sure we'll have more definitive evidence soon. <https://www.msn.com/en-ca/video/other/china-video-shows-mudslide-surging-through-gyirong-port/vi-AA2b3Ch1#details https://www.msn.com/en-ca/video/other/china-video-shows-muds...>. - The event is, as has been noted, foreseable, but also unprecedented. There are no events of comparable magnitude in the area, despite previous flooding. The likelihood that this week's incident represents a potential new baseline must be considered. - Debris flows were moving at roughly 50m/s, or 180 kph (about 110 mph). That's not only an absolutely formidable speed, but a formidable force, where kinetic energy = mass * velocity squared. The only possible safe refuge I could see would be some sort of underground bunker, into which all staff and travelers would have to locate to in a matter of seconds, and then sealed against water intake, this in a busy border crossing with multiple nationalities and languages in a region with a < 70% literacy rate. And that's for the Gyirong border station itself. Note that that was a Chinese facility, where China is the vastly wealthier and better-resourced partner to Nepal. Nepal's capabilities to effect similar measures at an equivalent facility or in numerous communities throughout the region is quite limited. Also affected were numerous other facilities, including a shrine (being visited by numerous Hindu pilgrims), apparently utterly destroyed and all present killed, numerous villages, etc. Roads are heavily damaged if present at all, bridges are washed away, and in a region with tens to hundreds of thousands of inhabitants (based on various county/district Wikipedia pages I've examined), a dozen or so rescue helicopters have so far been summoned. Oh, and a new glacial/debris dam and lake have formed which is feared may pose an additional outburst flood event within days (<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/27/nepal-tibet-flash-floods-aid https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/27/nepal-tibet-fl...>).

totetsu 1mo ago

When I was researching this morning I found papers related to this kind of risk from at least 2000. Given 20 years there could have been things done I think. And there is a lot of settlement on the tops of the ranges in that area too.. Maybe the roads have to be on the river valley, but not everything else. People living there could have been offered alternative land to move out of the path of it.. monitoring and early warning could have been set up.. at the checkpoint, if it had to be there, there could have been a big evacuation tunnel carved into the hillside, or something.. I guess Nepal doesn't have a lot of resources though. The same thing even happened a year ago in the sample place, but at a smaller size https://www.stimson.org/2025/investigating-an-emerging-climate-hazard-transboundary-glacial-floods-on-the-china-nepal-border/ https://www.stimson.org/2025/investigating-an-emerging-clima...

lazide 1mo ago
Flat lowland is great because it's cheap and easy to build on, and not a hassle to actually use. Ridgelines and slopes are terrible to build on (and often use) because there is little to no actual flat usable area without extensive construction. They also tend to be unstable and slide/erode. That said, if I was in that area, of course i'd never build/live on anything but the highest ridgeline or slope around. One of those 'long term/outlier risks cause daily costs' type of things. :s
dredmorbius 1mo ago
So, one of the most notably impacted locations to date has been the Gyirong port border crossing, noted in a couple of my earlier comments. Part of that is due to there being surveillance closed-circuit camera footage available, and there are other areas which would have been similarly affected. A few additional thoughts and facts have come to light: - The crossing was substantially renovated in January of this year following an earlier flood which washed out the bridge connecting the station (in China) to Nepal. - The crossing, part of China's Belt and Road Initiative (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative>), by needs must sit on the principal highway through the region. Which ... follows the river valley. Now, it's possible for that highway to be raised substantially off the valley floor, but consider that "inundations reached heights of 800m (2,600 ft) in a valley some 7km (4.3 mi) from the origin" (<https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20260827_22/ https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20260827_22/>, via Wikipedia). - The inundation reached the Gyirong port seven minutes after the initial avalanche. Even with absolutely timely warnings, that is only just barely enough time for a fit person to reach a safe elevation above the port itself. Wikipedia now mentions two people (of apparently hundreds present) being rescued from Gyirong port. - Early reconnaissance footage above the site of the former Gyirong port shows nothing but bare land. All of the apparently quite substantial structures on the site were simply scrubbed from existence. The forces involved are formidable. <https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202608/1369215.shtml https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202608/1369215.shtml> I believe that the end of this video shows post-incident video of the same site, though frankly it's unrecognisable. I'm sure we'll have more definitive evidence soon. <https://www.msn.com/en-ca/video/other/china-video-shows-mudslide-surging-through-gyirong-port/vi-AA2b3Ch1#details https://www.msn.com/en-ca/video/other/china-video-shows-muds...>. - The event is, as has been noted, foreseable, but also unprecedented. There are no events of comparable magnitude in the area, despite previous flooding. The likelihood that this week's incident represents a potential new baseline must be considered. - Debris flows were moving at roughly 50m/s, or 180 kph (about 110 mph). That's not only an absolutely formidable speed, but a formidable force, where kinetic energy = mass * velocity squared. The only possible safe refuge I could see would be some sort of underground bunker, into which all staff and travelers would have to locate to in a matter of seconds, and then sealed against water intake, this in a busy border crossing with multiple nationalities and languages in a region with a < 70% literacy rate. And that's for the Gyirong border station itself. Note that that was a Chinese facility, where China is the vastly wealthier and better-resourced partner to Nepal. Nepal's capabilities to effect similar measures at an equivalent facility or in numerous communities throughout the region is quite limited. Also affected were numerous other facilities, including a shrine (being visited by numerous Hindu pilgrims), apparently utterly destroyed and all present killed, numerous villages, etc. Roads are heavily damaged if present at all, bridges are washed away, and in a region with tens to hundreds of thousands of inhabitants (based on various county/district Wikipedia pages I've examined), a dozen or so rescue helicopters have so far been summoned. Oh, and a new glacial/debris dam and lake have formed which is feared may pose an additional outburst flood event within days (<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/27/nepal-tibet-flash-floods-aid https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/27/nepal-tibet-fl...>).