Analysis of Nepal Glacier Disaster

Well, let's analyze the disaster in Nepal, what may have led up

to it, and how it unfolded almost minute by

minute.

First, where is Nepal? It's in Asia, sits

right here. China's to the north, India is to the south.

And of course, it is home to the tallest mountain range

in the world, the

Himalayas, we're of course, all familiar with Mount Everest,

the highest peak in

the world. And you notice there is a lot of white on here as well, right?

But just like many places in the world, the glaciers in Nepal, and there are more

than 3,000 of them, are very susceptible to melt.

That's happening everywhere on the planet, and certainly it's happening here.

A study over a decade's period of time show this Yala glacier, where the

collapse occurred, has lost about 33 feet of water equivalent

in

that decade, so about three stories worth of water.

And this summer, Nepal is experiencing one of its warmest summers

on record.

But let's d- break down some details specifically of

this glacier.

This is it right here, okay? And the area of

collapse was about a mile wide, okay?

So in essence from about, say, here to here, that

is about a mile across. Elevation here is about

16,700 feet, okay? It's way

up there. All right? The other thing to keep in mind

is this time,

10:52

and 10 seconds, the exact moment that the US Geological

Survey registered the collapse. But also something else to consider,

you see all of this, all this white? All that is fresh snow.

This image is from January of this year.

It's the coldest time of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, fresh snow.

High albedo, we would call this, or high reflectivity.

So as the sun is beating down on this snowpack, a lot of it's being

reflected back out into space. And so you don't get a ton of snow melt

when you

have a high reflectivity surface like this, something bright white.

However, in the summertime, it's a completely different story.

Temperatures are warmest, again, Nepal experiencing one of its warmest

summers on

record, so a lot of this fresh snow ends up

melting,

revealing a very dingy, gray, rock-filled

glacier underneath. And so it absorbs a lot more heat,

it accelerates the

melt. There are more details to point out about

this specific glacier.

Notice all of these striations in here, and so it's almost like an

accordion. What causes that? A variety of things.

The slope itself could be some small tremors that cause this.

Thaw, freeze, all these things can contribute to a very

susceptible glacier. That's exactly what this is, and down

it came. Again, 16,000 feet up, it all came

crashing down rapidly. You see this area right in here,

this channel right

here? That's from glacial retreat, sediment left over.

But notice, almost like, in essence,

a half pipe on a ski slope. So it's a perfect channel for all this to

come screaming down the mountainside and be focused at a very

specific location. So from the top of the glacier down to the

river here, that's about a 7,000-foot

drop over the course of roughly 3.4 miles.

Now, because it's coming down with such force,

all of that ice in that

glacier basically pulverizes and liquefies in the snap of a

finger. So now you've got massive amounts of water

that are gonna flow

down the gorge here. And so again, keep in mind, the, the Himalayas, you

got these big slopes here. And so it's really constricted,

so the water is rising, right? And according to helicopter

surveys,

generally speaking,

300 feet was the peak of the debris line.

Could you imagine a wall of water and debris, 'cause it's

picking up things all along the way here,

300 feet tall?

Absolutely terrifying, right? From there, it works its way downstream.

We've all seen the video of the checkpoint, the

China-Nepal border where they've got a border crossing there.

That's about 13.4 miles from the peak of the

Yala glacier and the collapse, okay?

It's about a 10,500-foot drop over that period,

okay? What that tells us is a significant slope.

For example, the Mississippi River from Minneapolis to

New

Orleans, 1,700 miles, it only drops

750 feet. This drops more than 10,000 feet in

roughly

13 miles. There's the building. We saw what happened, but

here's one thing to keep in mind. The exact moment of first

contact with the building, 'cause we saw it on the surveillance

camera and the

clock,

10:59:50.

That's exactly seven minutes and 40 seconds

after the collapse was registered by the USGS.

So over that distance and time, the average

speed of the flood was

105 miles per hour. A wall of water 300

feet tall going 105 miles per hour described by survivors as

a tsunami. Coming down, though, with such force in this direction,

it smashes

against this bank. Part of it actually goes upstream for a

mile

and a half, and then mos- much of it then continues downstream as

well.

From this point, we go 32 miles downstream.

We find ourselves in Trishuli Bazaar.

It is a village here where the water is now a little bit lower.

It's not a 300-foot tall tsunami anymore.

It's significantly lower. Some of it has dissipated.

The speed has slowed some because the slope is a little bit more gradual now.

However,

all this area, crushed by the water.

You can see the bridge taken out right there.

This is 45 miles

upriver from where the collapse happened.

All of these factors combining to create an epic disaster the likes of which we

have never witnessed before on camera, and unfortunately, in

many regards, completely predictable.