The UN says the disaster has left at least 2.2 million tonnes of debris, according to a preliminary estimate.
A week on from devastating flash floods in the Himalayas that killed more than 1,100 people and left nearly 4,000 missing, search and rescue operations continue.
On August 26, a torrent of water, mud and rocks swept through communities in Nepal and China’s autonomous Tibet region after a glacial collapse, leaving behind a trail of destruction.
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At least 1,114 people have been killed in Nepal, according to the Reuters news agency. In neighbouring Tibet, Chinese authorities have reported 16 deaths and 546 people missing.
The disaster left at least 2.2 million tonnes of debris, the United Nations Development Programme said, noting this was a preliminary estimate. The area affected in Nepal was home to 11 hydropower stations and one solar plant, which have stopped operating. Another 15 power projects under construction, with a planned capacity of 470 megawatts, were also damaged.
Al Jazeera’s Barnaby Lo, reporting from Kathmandu, says more specialised equipment is being flown in to help with search and rescue operations, especially for about 600 workers, some of whom are believed to be stuck in tunnels below the hydropower stations.
Prime Minister Balendra Shah’s office told Al Jazeera that more than 270 workers were rescued from the tunnel sites, not inside.
“Still, search and rescue operations are continuing. The Nepali army is drilling, digging and trying to reach those people. And pretty soon they are going to be joined by a team of foreign experts from South Korea after the arrival of Chinese and Indian experts who have been helping out for a few days now,” said Lo.
Forensic experts from China and Singapore are also due to arrive to help with the management and identification of the dead, which has become a daunting task given the mounting death toll and the state of the decomposing bodies.
“Families here have held funerals saying they need to do it even if they don’t have the bodies of their missing relatives to free their spirits,” Lo said.
In 2020, a UN-backed study (PDF) identified 47 potentially dangerous glacial lakes across Nepal, India and China.
Of those, 31 were placed in Rank I, the category considered to pose the highest risk of an outburst. The remaining lakes were classified as Rank II or III. Researchers called for closer monitoring of the lakes, early warning systems and other measures to reduce the risks to communities downstream.
The study also warned that rising temperatures were reshaping the Himalayan landscape. As glaciers retreat and fragment, new glacial lakes can form and existing ones can expand, increasing the risk of glacial lake outburst floods, or sudden releases of large volumes of water that can sweep through valleys downstream.
“These same experts are saying that it is becoming more dangerous and that the risk could be long-term, which means that people living in these villages might not be able to go back to rebuild their lives there,” Lo said.
In an interview with The Kathmandu Post, Foreign Minister Shishir Khanal demanded compensation from large greenhouse gas emitters.
“Nepal’s greenhouse gas emissions are virtually negligible. Yet, we are paying the ultimate price for a global crisis we did not create. The rapid melting of glaciers and these catastrophic mountain tsunamis are direct consequences of global climate change,” Khanal said.
“The major industrial emitters – such as China, which is the world’s top emitter, the United States at number two, and India at number three – have a historical responsibility to compensate vulnerable nations like Nepal,” he said.
To this end, the country’s Ministry of Finance has officially dispatched a “formal climate compensation claim letter” to international partners, he added without specifying the names.
