Everything Was Swept Away... Another Glacier Lake 'Collapse Risk' Upstream

[Anchor]

As you just saw, a massive wall of water triggered by a glacial landslide instantly swallowed everything in its path. Now, warnings are emerging locally that a secondary catastrophic flood could occur.

Reporter Choi Go-un has the details.

[Reporter]

A border checkpoint connecting Nepal and China.

A massive wall of mud completely swallows entire buildings.

A parking lot building where dozens of buses were gathered is smashed to pieces in an instant, just like a toy.

Nothing could withstand the muddy tsunami that swept down the canyon at high speed accompanied by a deafening roar.

[Flood Witness: It looked like the current was moving at around 20 meters per second. The flood struck in such a short amount of time that the chances of escaping were extremely low.]

Glacial collapse has been pointed out as the cause of the massive flood, which occurred despite the clear weather without heavy rain.

Influenced by climate change, a massive amount of glacier and rock collapsed in the high-altitude border region between Nepal and China, blocking the river's flow. The temporary 'glacier dam' formed this way could no longer hold, suddenly collapsing and sending a tremendous amount of water and debris rushing downstream all at once.

The tremors initially detected as an earthquake by the U.S. Geological Survey were also revealed to be earthquake-like phenomena generated by the collapse of glacier and rock masses.

[Tang Chuan / Chengdu University of Technology Institute of Geohazards Prevention: A waterfall-like mixture of glaciers and rocks poured down along the main valley, eroding the rocks along its path and triggering a massive debris flow, resulting in a large-scale disaster.]

The bigger problem is the risk of a secondary flood.

Aerial footage clearly captures the debris blocking the river in the upstream area where the flood first began.

The debris flow along the edges is up to 1.5 meters thick, making it a massive scale that cannot be easily removed.

[Chinese State Media CCTV Reporter: It has started to rain, and the aircraft is completely soaked. Despite the difficult conditions, we are maintaining low-altitude flight as we head to the disaster area.]

Concerns are rising that if water continues to accumulate in the affected section, it could collapse again under the pressure, delivering a major blow to already difficult rescue and recovery operations.

(Video Editing: Wi Won-yang, Design: Seo Seung-hyun)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.