LHASA (Tibet), Sept 8: The devastating flash flood along the Tibet-Nepal border on August 26 has intensified concerns over the growing impact of climate change on the fragile Himalayan ecosystem and renewed scrutiny of major hydropower projects in the region, including China’s massive dam under construction on the Brahmaputra River.
Chinese climate and mountain-hazard experts have linked the disaster to a combination of rising temperatures, accelerated glacier melt and retreat, unstable geological conditions and changing precipitation patterns.
Sun Xiaoguang, head of the Meteorological Observatory of the Tibet Autonomous Region, said Tibet has been experiencing changes in rainfall patterns alongside rising temperatures, trends that could be associated with the broader climate crisis.
Speaking to PTI while travelling towards the flood affected area near the Tibet-Nepal border, Sun said extreme weather events in China could become increasingly frequent as the effects of climate change intensify.
The August 26 catastrophe followed an ice rock avalanche near the Nepal-Tibet border that unleashed a huge volume of water, rocks and debris into the Bhotekoshi River. The resulting torrent devastated settlements across northern and central Nepal, leaving more than 1,350 people dead and around 5,000 missing.
On the Chinese side, authorities have reported 43 deaths and 519 people missing. Among those unaccounted for are 261 foreigners, including 49 Indian nationals.
The sheer force of the debris flow, carrying massive boulders, ice and mud, destroyed the Chinese immigration centre at Gyirong. During a visit to the affected area, foreign correspondents from Beijing found virtually no remains of the sprawling structure, apart from a few metal rods protruding from the debris.
The disaster has drawn renewed attention to the environmental vulnerability of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, often described as the “roof of the world”. The region is the source of several major transboundary rivers, including the Brahmaputra, which flows from Tibet into India and Bangladesh.
The latest concerns also come amid long standing debate over China’s large-scale hydropower development in the Himalayan region.
China is constructing a massive dam on the Brahmaputra in Tibet, upstream of India’s Arunachal Pradesh. The project, estimated to cost USD 167.8 billion, is expected to produce more than 300 billion kWh of electricity annually and has been described as the world’s largest construction project.
Work on the project began in July last year. The dam is planned for a deep Himalayan gorge where the Brahmaputra makes a dramatic U-turn before entering Arunachal Pradesh and eventually flowing into Bangladesh.
The project has previously faced concerns over the region’s seismic vulnerability, as Tibet lies along the tectonically active boundary where the Indian and Eurasian plates meet. The recent disaster has brought climate-related hazards, glacier instability and changing hydrological conditions into sharper focus.
Chinese researchers have warned that global warming is increasingly influencing the frequency and severity of natural hazards in high-altitude areas.
The August disaster, they said, illustrates how changes occurring across the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau can interact with geological and weather conditions to create rapidly escalating risks.
Chinese officials said Tibet is home to about 33,000 glaciers, of which 187 have been classified as high-risk and require continuous satellite monitoring to detect possible collapses.
Nie Yong, a researcher at the Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment of China, said the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau now has more than 14,000 glacial lakes covering a combined area of over 1,100 square kilometres.
Many of these lakes are continuing to expand, with their overall area increasing by approximately one per cent annually, Nie told Chinese newspaper The Paper. He warned that the expansion could add to the accumulation of geological hazards in high-altitude regions.
Kang Shichang, director and researcher at the Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment under the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Chengdu, said glaciers across the plateau have lost about 24 per cent of their area over the past six decades.
The decline has been considerably greater in the southern part of the plateau, particularly across the Gangdise Mountains, Nyenchen Tanglha Mountains and the Himalayas. Glacier coverage in these areas has fallen by around 40 per cent over the same period, Kang told The Paper, identifying global warming as the primary factor behind the retreat.
Scientists say the loss of glacier ice is also contributing to the formation and enlargement of glacial lakes, increasing the potential for glacial lake outburst floods, landslides and other cascading disasters.
Experts examining the mudslide near Gyirong Port have concluded that climate-related changes played an important role in the chain of events.
Higher temperatures can accelerate glacier melting and retreat, while the loss of ice can weaken mountain slopes and expose loose rock and sediment. When intense rainfall or sudden structural failure occurs, these unstable areas can generate ice-rock avalanches that rapidly transform into destructive debris flows.
The disappearance of glaciers can also leave behind unstable landscapes and expanding water bodies, creating new hazard zones in remote mountain valleys.
The findings have added a climate dimension to existing concerns surrounding infrastructure development in one of the world’s most geologically active and environmentally sensitive regions, underscoring the need for closer monitoring of glaciers, glacial lakes, weather patterns and geological instability.