China-Nepal floods: First research shows that no one could have outrun debris flow
A new peer-reviewed study by the Chinese Academy of Sciences reveals that the debris flow from a recent glacier collapse at the China-Nepal border reached speeds of 19 meters per second, making it impossible to outrun. The disaster, which transitioned from an ice avalanche to a mudslide and flood, resulted in over 1,000 deaths and thousands missing across both countries.
Why it matters
This research highlights the extreme speed and destructive power of such natural disasters, underscoring the critical need for rapid identification, information transmission, and emergency decision-making to mitigate loss of life in high-risk mountainous regions.
Not even the world’s fastest sprinters could have outrun the devastating floodwaters that struck a border crossing between China and Nepal last week, according to one of the first peer-reviewed assessments of the disaster.
Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) calculated that the surface velocity of the debris flow was 19 metres per second (62 feet per second) when it struck the checkpoint at Gyirong Port in Tibet .
This is almost twice Usain Bolt’s average speed when he set the 100 metres world record of 9.58 seconds in 2009, and 50 per cent higher than his top speed.
In a paper posted online on Tuesday by the Chinese-language journal Yangtze River, the team used digital models and frame-by-frame analysis to reconstruct the event, which was triggered by the collapse of a high-altitude glacier in Nepal .
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