Rescuers scour Nepal flood debris as risk of fresh flooding grows
Rescue operations in Nepal were briefly interrupted after a landslide-formed lake on the Nepal-China border began overflowing. The region is still reeling from a catastrophic glacier collapse that resulted in hundreds of deaths and missing persons.
Why it matters
The disaster highlights the extreme vulnerability of Himalayan communities to climate-induced geological events and the difficulty of rescue efforts in remote terrain.
A lake formed by a landslide on the Nepal-China border started to overflow on Friday, triggering panic and putting at risk areas devastated by a flash flood two days ago as rescue efforts were briefly halted.
Wednesday's catastrophic flood caused by a glacier collapse killed 489 people in Nepal and five in China's Tibet, with almost 1000 more missing in the two countries.
A huge torrent of rock, ice, mud and debris cascaded through Himalayan mountain river systems after the collapse, and also led to the formation of a lake where water continued to collect and rise.
On Friday, the lake's reservoir had topped 2.5 million cubic metres of water, up from the estimated 1.5-2 million cubic metres recorded a day earlier, before overflowing into the Bhotekoshi River, authorities and witnesses in Nepal said.
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