On August 26, 2026, a section of the Langtang Lirung glacier broke away at an altitude of more than 5,200 metres, plunging 1,200 to 1,500 metres with such force that the United States Geological Survey initially recorded it as an earthquake. Within seconds, at least 10 million cubic metres of ice collapsed, transforming into a mass of approximately 20 million cubic metres of water, mud and debris. Two weeks later, the death toll had risen to more than 6,000 people reported missing — and sadly, there is little hope of finding many of them alive.
A mechanism that remains poorly understood
Until now, attention had focused primarily on glacial lake outburst floods, which can trigger “mountain tsunamis”. But on August 26, a different mechanism was set in motion: the retreat of the lower part of a glacier leaves its upper section suspended. As a result of warming, the permafrost that was holding it in place also melts, causing the ice to fracture and collapse — sometimes directly into a glacial lake, triggering a sudden outburst. The resulting wave, which can reach speeds of up to 180 km/h in the narrow gorges where many people live, sweeps away everything in its path: villages, roads and nearly forty hydropower plants.
This danger remains largely invisible: the glaciers concerned are often several days’ walk from the nearest monitoring station, and only three glaciers in Nepal are subject to regular field monitoring, limited to surface observations.
A phenomenon likely to recur
Langtang Lirung is not an isolated case. The Himalayas, the Karakoram and the surrounding mountain ranges form the “Third Pole”: with around 40,000 glaciers, it is the largest mass of ice on Earth after the Arctic and Antarctic. Yet this region is melting faster than either of the other two, partly because industrial pollution from India and Pakistan darkens the ice and accelerates heat absorption. The rate of melting has increased by 65% in ten years.
In Bhutan, a glacial lake holding 50 million cubic metres of water is seeing its moraine dangerously thin — from 50 to 15 metres thick over the past twenty-five years. Glaciologists are attempting to drain it gradually to defuse the threat.
In total, 47 dangerous glacial lakes have been identified across Nepal, Tibet and India, including 21 in Nepal alone, in a situation comparable to that of Langtang Lirung. Even more troubling, hundreds of lakes in Nepal and Bhutan do not yet have names because they did not exist thirty years ago — entire landscapes reshaped by warming, without anyone having had time to map them.
A stark climate injustice, backed by the numbers
This disaster is striking a country that bears virtually no responsibility for it. An American emits an average of around 14 tonnes of CO₂ per year, a European between 5 and 7 tonnes depending on the country, while a Nepali emits around 0.5 tonnes — nearly thirty times less than an American and ten to fifteen times less than a European. Bhutan even has a negative carbon balance, with its forests absorbing more carbon than the country emits, while Nepal’s emissions are close to negligible.
And yet it is the people of Nepal who are bearing the most devastating consequences of a changing climate for which they bear only a tiny share of the responsibility. Nepal is paying a heavy price for the excesses of others.
A population that is no longer silent
The people of Nepal are now fully aware of this injustice. As disasters become more frequent, voices are increasingly calling for compensation from the nations that emit the bulk of the greenhouse gases responsible for climate change. The argument is simple: a country that contributes so little to the problem should not have to bear the deadliest consequences alone. This demand for climate justice, long voiced at international conferences, is now taking on a direct and urgent resonance on the ground.
“We have no way of controlling the instability of glaciers itself,” acknowledges a cryosphere specialist in Kathmandu. Existing warning systems only monitor rising river levels — a signal that comes too late for people living closest to the gorges. And the same event, researchers warn, could happen elsewhere, without any way of anticipating it.
Behind the thousands of lives lost and the villages wiped off the map lies a question that reaches far beyond the Himalayas: that of responsibility and solidarity in the face of a crisis whose effects are once again concentrated on those who have contributed least to causing it.
Karuna-Shechen’s response in Nepal
Since August 26, Karuna-Shechen has been supporting communities affected by the floods. In the districts of Rasuwa and Nuwakot, teams are distributing water, essential supplies and equipment, while gradually putting psychosocial support in place. More than 1,000 people have already received direct support.
References
Systemiq / Integrated Mountain Initiative, in collaboration with ICIMOD and the GB Pant National Institute of Himalayan Environment, report Prosperous and Resilient Himalayas (2026) — direct source for the figure indicating a 65% acceleration in the rate of glacier melt over a decade, and for the estimate that one-third of the melt is caused by black carbon (soot from brick kilns in the Indo-Gangetic Plain).
On the projected loss of 80% of glacial volume by 2100: ICIMOD 2023 study (Hindu Kush Himalaya Assessment).
Duan, Jianping, Lun Li, Liang Chen, and Haoxin Zhang. “Time-Dependent Warming Amplification over the Tibetan Plateau during the Past Few Decades.” Atmospheric Science Letters 21, no. 10 (2020).
Bamber, Jonathan. “Nepal-Tibet disaster linked to climate change – a glaciologist explains.” The Conversation, August 28, 2026.
Sengupta, Saurya. “Nepal Devastation Puts Focus Back on Glacial Lake Outburst Floods in the Himalayas. What Is a GLOF?” Hindustan Times, August 26, 2026.
ICIMOD, joint report with the Government of Nepal and the UNDP, New glacial lake inventory report (data updated in 2025–2026) — source for the figure of 47 potentially dangerous glacial lakes (21 in Nepal, 25 in Tibet, 1 in India).
On Thorthormi Tsho in Bhutan: NHESS (Copernicus), “Advancing glacial lake hazard and risk assessment in Bhutan…” (2026) and “A glacial lake outburst flood risk assessment for the Phochhu river basin” (2024) — hydrodynamic studies estimating a combined volume of up to 53 million m³ with the neighbouring Raphstreng Tsho lake; NASA Earth Observatory, “Thorthormi Glacier Lake, Bhutan” — on the moraine subsidence and the programme to manually lower the lake level since 2008.
Onlinekhabar (September 18, 2026), “What has Nepal done to adapt to climate change?” — precise figures: global average emissions of 4.67 tonnes per capita, compared with 0.54 tonnes per capita in Nepal (a factor of approximately 27 to 30 compared with the United States, where per-capita emissions are around 14–15 tonnes).
Harvard International Review, “Carbon Negativity in Bhutan: An Inverse Free Rider Problem” — on Bhutan’s status, with its forests sequestering significantly more carbon than the country emits (by a factor of 3 to 4 depending on the year).
The call for climate reparations
Al Jazeera, Inside Story (September 3, 2026), “Is Nepal leading the battle for climate justice?” — Nepal’s Foreign Minister explicitly calling for compensation from China, the United States and India.