Following a massive loss of life from a landslide near the China-Nepal border, concerns are rising that glacial disasters driven by global warming could occur more frequently in regions such as China's Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

According to China News Service, Gao Rong, deputy director of the China National Climate Center under the China Meteorological Administration, raised the possibility of more frequent glacial disasters on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau amid global warming during a government press conference yesterday (September 2).

He explained that mountain glaciers around the world are melting at an accelerated pace due to global warming, noting that glaciers are experiencing higher temperatures, faster flow rates, and an increased frequency of dynamic activity.

He added that the collapse of high-mountain glaciers has been on an upward trend globally, particularly since 2010.

China's mountain glaciers are primarily distributed around the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, known as the "Roof of the World."

"As the climate of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau becomes warmer and wetter, the melting of glaciers is accelerating," Gao said. "Over the past 60 years, the total glacier area on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau has decreased by about 24%, and approximately 7,000 small glaciers have completely disappeared."

He went on to note that the number and area of lakes formed by melting glaciers are increasing and that the glaciers remain in an unstable state. "Looking ahead, the structural stability inside the glaciers of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is expected to decline further, and glacial disasters could become more frequent," he warned.

He also stated, "Due to the cascading amplification effect of disasters, the scale of damage and the affected range could expand."

According to Chinese announcements, the recent disaster occurred on August 26 when glaciers and rocks collapsed at an altitude of about 5,200 meters within Nepalese territory, forming a debris flow.

The debris flow swept down about 22 kilometers in just 6 to 7 minutes, engulfing the Chinese Gyirong Port at an altitude of 1,800 meters, leaving more than 6,000 people dead or missing across both countries' territories.

However, some views place more weight on bedrock collapse rather than glacier instability as the cause of the disaster.

Jakob Steiner, a geoscientist at the University of Graz in Austria, told the Chinese media outlet Global Times in an interview that satellite and field photo analyses suggest the disaster may have been driven by bedrock rather than the instability of the glacier itself.

"The glacier likely contributed to the scale and spread of the debris flow by adding material (to be swept away)," he said.

He added that long-term environmental changes and slope instability may have been more important factors in the short term prior to the glacial collapse than snow and ice melting.

Recent glacier melting may have served as the "final trigger," but the slope would have eventually collapsed at some point, he analyzed.

Dan Sugar, a geology professor at the University of Calgary in Canada, stated after analyzing photographs that "it appeared not just the glacier collapsed, but a much larger section of the mountain slope's bedrock collapsed together," adding, "A massive bedrock collapse accompanied by a portion of the glacier occurred."