Experts say that it is necessary to study the small and obscure glaciers formed on the surface of the ground under the ice that cannot be recorded by satellite technology.
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Last Thursday night, 18 families were displaced due to floods in Tilgaon located in Namkha rural municipality-6 of Humla. According to District Administration Office Humla, 5 wooden bridges of Tilchung River were washed away. Two houses and a hydroelectric power house with 15 kilowatt capacity have been damaged. About 400 crops were being irrigated in the wells that were also washed away by the flood.
The Sekhanglugwa river, which flows between Tilgaon and Kanjum Gumba without rain, has been flooded with mud. In this case, experts have suspected Himtal explosion. Ram Bahadur KC, spokesman of the authority, said that according to preliminary research conducted jointly by the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority and the International Integrated Mountain Development Center (ISMOD), there was a 'thermal crash outburst'.
'Thermal crash outburst' is when the frozen snow melts and bursts when the temperature rises suddenly. On the day of the flood, the temperature in Humla rose from 15 to 22 degrees. As the snow melts and erodes inside, the settlement is at risk. It is assumed that this may be a kind of ice lake burst," said spokesperson KC. According to the preliminary study, in the incident of Thursday night, Himtal, which is more than 5,300 meters above the sea level, cracked a little, and the flood with water from 4,700 meters caused damage to the Tilgaon settlement, which is 3,700 meters above sea level. According to an expert from ISIMOD, similar incidents happened in 2008 around Namkha area of Humla.
After the locals reported that there was a flood without any rain, the authority started the study in coordination with ISIMOD. The team informed the Home Ministry about the preliminary study on Monday afternoon. "The Authority, Department of Water and Meteorology and ISIMOD have been instructed to conduct a detailed study, for the time being there are preparations to provide relief to 32 people from Tilgaon who have been shifted to a safe place," said spokesperson KC.
In the previous year as well, the Thame area of Jomsom, Gorkha, Solukhumbu had been damaged due to flooding due to Himtal eruption, he said, and the attention of the Ministry of Home Affairs has been drawn to conduct a detailed study in the Himalayan region. "There is a need to properly study the effects of temperature rise and climate change," he said.
Two months ago on the occasion of 'World Snow Day', the 'World Water Development Report 2025', published by the United Nations, also pointed out that due to the rising temperature, the snow and glaciers are melting at a faster rate all over the world. "Global temperature increase is melting glaciers, reducing the amount of snow, melting icy soils, increasing extreme rainfall and natural disasters," the report said, "Due to dust, drift, air pollution, wildfires, black carbon, micro-organisms and lye are increasing on the surface of snow and glaciers, which has increased the rate of melting of snow and glaciers."
According to a report published five years ago by Isimod about the condition and impact of glaciers, 47 glaciers are at risk of explosion affecting the coastal areas including Nepal. 42 of them fall in the Koshi river basin. Three Gandaki and two are in the Karnali basin. There are 21 glaciers that are at risk of explosion within Nepal.
According to GitHub, an internet-based public information collection platform, 56 Himtal explosions have been 'recorded' in Nepal so far. Sudeep Thakuri, associate professor and glaciologist of the Environmental Science Department of Tertiary University, said that 30 of them have been large glacier explosions. "The Thame glacier where the incident occurred is small, but it caused great damage. No matter how many dangerous glaciers have been reported so far, monitoring them alone cannot address the risk of glacier explosion," he said.
According to Thakuri, so far only glaciers visible outside the ice and identified by satellite images have been studied, so there has not been enough study of small and ice glaciers formed on the surface of the ground. As a result, there is a risk of disaster like Tilgaon, he says. "There are water bodies like ice lakes even in the snow in the Himalayan region, they have not been studied but it is important when the temperature of the ground is increasing," he said. Such landform is low in the west of Nepal (Karnali watershed area) but there may be lakes under the snow surface, it is necessary to study it.'
Climatologist Ngmindra Dahal said that due to the fact that the number of glaciers from Dhaulagiri Himal to western Nepal is less than in the past, there is insufficient study on avalanche risk. "Since the temperature is increasing and its effects are increasing every year, now it is necessary to assess the possibility of floods in all rivers in the long term and conduct scientific studies in a planned manner to reduce the risk," he said. Dahal suggests that the local community should be involved.
