Is Nepal's flood a harbinger of what's to come in the Himalayas?

KATHMANDU, Nepal — On a recent September day, Sumana Shrestha Amatya stood alongside other protesters in the Nepali capital, urging the government to work faster to find their loved ones, trapped inside hydropower plants since flash floods devastated miles of a river valley in late August.

Amatya says she hasn't heard from officials about her husband, Sunil, a geologist. Still, she acknowledged the scale of the disaster that the government was grappling with: "It was like a Himalayan tsunami."

It's a description other Nepalis have used for the events of Aug. 26, when a glacier and its bedrock spanning more than 3,800 feet in width collapsed into a river valley, some 4,000 feet below.