Trapped in a Deep V-Shaped Gorge in an Instant... No Time to Escape

[Anchor]

The massive scale of this flood damage appears to be due to the narrow, deeply carved V-shaped valley terrain.

Reporter Han Sung-hee brings us the details of the sudden, unstoppable torrents that swept through the area.

[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 up the entire area in a split second.

A nearby parking lot lined with buses is also completely helpless against the surging water and debris.

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

[Shoyam Rajbhandari: In less than 30 minutes, the river swelled massively and engulfed the area, destroying everything here.]

Before-and-after satellite images clearly capture the devastation left in the wake of the torrents.

Even survivors who narrowly escaped with their lives spent sleepless nights, unable to guarantee the safety of their families.

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

Locals even report that as many as 10,000 people may have been swept away by the torrents.

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

The terrain is what amplified the damage.

As the torrential waters concentrated into a narrow channel along the deep V-shaped gorge terrain of the area, they swept directly through several villages and markets gathered along the riverbank, compounding the devastation.

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

Possible causes for this flash flood include high temperatures melting high-altitude glaciers and bursting glacial lakes—which act as natural sand embankments—or the lower part of a glacier breaking off for unknown reasons and plunging hundreds of meters down into the valley below.

Local authorities are stepping up search efforts for the missing, but operations are expected to face major hurdles due to the rugged terrain, as well as severed roads, electricity, and communications.

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