Himalayan Sherpa village hit by freezing floods

A Sherpa village in Nepal’s Everest region has been engulfed by icy flood waters, officials say.

Experts suspect Thame – which sits at an altitude of about 3,800m – was flooded after a glacial lake burst its banks. Scientists have warned that climate change is causing many glaciers in the Himalayas to melt at an alarming rate.

No deaths or injuries have been reported, but more than a dozen buildings including houses, a school and a health clinic have been completely destroyed by Friday’s deluge.

Thame is home to many record-holding Sherpa mountaineers and is also where Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, the first person to climb Mount Everest along with explorer Edmund Hillary, hailed from.

Videos show frothy, milky waters surging through the village in floods turned brown by mud and debris.

A spokesman for the Nepalese army, Gaurav Kumar KC, told AFP about 15 homes had been swept away, while rescue teams were helping people to safety.

Local authorities say bad weather did not permit the use of helicopters during their investigation, adding they plan to fly to the mountains on Saturday morning.

While the cause of the flood is unknown, Arun Bhakta Shrestha, a climate change specialist at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) said there are “indications” it was the result of a glacial lake outburst and they were working to confirm it.

Scientists have warned that Himalayan glaciers are melting because of climate change and creating glacial lakes, often dammed by loose rock and debris, which makes them unstable and prone to bursting their banks.

Hundreds of glacial lakes formed from glacial melt have appeared out of nowhere in the Himalayas in recent decades. According to a 2020 report by the ICIMOD, 2,070 were documented in Nepal, of which 21 were ranked “potentially dangerous”.