September 2, 2026 | 07:27 pm
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The devastating flash floods and landslides along the Nepal-China border should serve as a warning to other Himalayan countries, especially regarding the construction of large dams in disaster-prone mountainous areas.
“Such a disaster is inevitably coming always in the dynamic glacial and seismically active environment of the high Himalayas and the Karakorams,” Daanish Mustafa, professor of critical geography at King’s College London, as quoted by Anadolu, citing ANTARA.
Mustafa issued the warning as search operations for nearly 4,500 missing people were still underway. The death toll from the August 26 disaster reached 1,130 on Wednesday, a week after flash floods and landslides struck the border between the two countries.
The disaster occurred after a glacier on Mount Langtang Lirung, Nepal, cracked at an altitude of about 5,200 meters, triggering an avalanche of ice and rocks that grew into a large flow of material and crashed into the valley along the border.
Water and mudflows devastated parts of Nepal, including Rasuwa, Nuwakot, Dhading, Kavre, and the Kathmandu Valley. On the Chinese side, landslides buried the Gyirong border post in southwestern Tibet. “This was a most unfortunate incident and sadly it was not preventable,” Mustafa said.
In Nepal, 3,916 people are still reported missing. Of these, 639 are personnel assigned to various hydropower projects in the country.
"Dams in high mountains simply work to amplify and accentuate the damage from such events. It should be a wakeup call to all the countries, especially India, China and Pakistan who are in the process of building large dams in the environment," Mustafa said.
China’s Foreign Ministry said Wednesday that the disaster was caused by glacier instability resulting from the long-term effects of climate warming. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun told reporters in Beijing that an avalanche of ice and rocks from a glacier in Nepal rapidly slid down the slope, eroding the mountainside and triggering the disaster.
Mustafa said that, until an independent scientific assessment is available, the official claims from China and Nepal should be taken into account temporarily. “At this point, we must adhere to the official claims of China and Nepal until an independent scientific assessment is available, which may take some time,” he said.
According to Mustafa, possible steps to address such disasters include public education, evacuation drills, an effective communication infrastructure, and monitoring.
He warned that dams could worsen the impact of similar disasters and urged South Asians to heed the warning. "These dams could cause a major disaster in an event like this. With the dams already in operation, such an event could cause millions of deaths, not just a few hundred, as happened in Nepal," Mustafa said.
Read: Nepal Flood: Death Toll Tops 1,000 as Rescue Continues
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