Trapped in a Deep V-Shaped Canyon: Sudden Torrent Left No Time to Escape

[Anchor]

The massive scale of the recent flood damage appears to be largely due to the narrow, deep V-shaped valley terrain.

Reporter Han Sung-hee brings us the footage showing how rapidly the torrent rushed in, leaving no time to react.

[Reporter]

In front of a border checkpoint building between Nepal and the Tibet Autonomous Region of China.

People run desperately, but a massive wall of mud swallows the entire area in an instant.

A nearby parking lot lined with buses is left completely helpless against the incoming surge of water and debris.

[Nepali Resident: It was a market along the way to the capital, Kathmandu, but now nothing is left.]

[Shoyam Rajbhandari: In less than 30 minutes, this river swelled massively and swept through, destroying everything here.]

The before-and-after images of the area swept away by the torrent are clearly captured in satellite photos.

Survivors who barely escaped with their lives spent sleepless nights while unable to ensure the safety of their families.

[Nepali Resident: Water and mud rushed into the house, and I managed to get out after about an hour. My wife was buried (in the mud)...]

Locally, there are even reports that up to 10,000 people may have been swept away by the torrent.

[Rishi Kandal / Secretary General, Nepal Red Cross Society: There are rumors that about 10,000 people were swept away. It will take time to recover all of these bodies.]

The terrain is what worsened the damage.

As the torrential floodwaters concentrated into narrow waterways along the deep V-shaped canyon terrain, they swept directly through multiple villages and markets gathered along the riverbanks, amplifying the devastation.

This is also why this region suffered the heaviest damage during the 2015 Nepal earthquake, which killed over 8,800 people.

Possible causes for this flash flood include high temperatures melting high-altitude glaciers, which could have breached glacial lakes—natural dams made of sand—or the lower part of a glacier breaking off for unknown reasons and plunging hundreds of meters down into the valley, triggering the disaster.

Local authorities are ramping up search efforts for the missing, but complications are expected due to the rugged terrain conditions, as well as completely severed roads, electricity, and telecommunications.

(Video Editing: Kim Jong-mi, Video Source: X (formerly Twitter) '@Sachingupta'@)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.