Posted by totetsu 6 hours ago
For context that's not where the flood happened, there's a massive mountain range in between those vallies reaching over 8000m (Shishapangma).
In earth science there are thousands of worst case scenario models published, but it's hard to actually predict reality.
Looks like a warning siren could have saved some lives. But apparently this was a black swan.
What is your definition of black swan? This paper is from 2022 and scientists have been warning about climate change for decades. It's not like this possibility wasn't anticipated. It seems likely we'll see more glacial events as the atmosphere warms.
It usually takes entire icebergs calving off to produce such seismic events and intense monsoons to create such flooding.
It seems that past history (especially recent) will not be a good predictor of future events.
While I'd wait for confirmation about the cause of this specific incident, the point you seem to be ignoring is that, due to climate change, events that would have been considered "black swans" historically will become more and more common, to the point that they are expected to occur.
Rescue operations in Nepal are in good hands, but this is sadly because those same response orgs had to respond to a similarly brutal cloud burst floods back in 2013 [0], 2021 [1] and 2025 [2].
It also shows the very real and brutal effect climate change is already having, and will only get worse.
[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_North_India_floods
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Uttarakhand_flood
[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Kishtwar_district_flash_f...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1970_Huascar%C3%A1n_debris_ava...
>Much of the landform has been shaped by the actions of glaciers and the shrinkage of the bay over long periods of time
This would support your notion. Albeit ridiculous.
>Finally starting in the Late Ordovician and continuing into the Silurian did the gradual regional subsidence of this part of the Canadian Shield form the Hudson Bay Basin
This would not.
I cannot decide whether to laugh, or downvote your comment without more context. That I did some research and learning to decide to comment instead leaves me happy and satisfied that your comment was not completely worthless.
Rather, the entire front face of a glacier at high elevation sheared off, likely millions of tonnes of material at least, crashed down a steep runnel, slammed into the opposing slope on the other side of the valley at the bottom, made that partially collapse, dammed the river for several minutes, and then all descended at high speed as the dam failed, with the results we see.
Some reportage is still saying there was an earthquake - there wasn’t - the landslide itself was the source of the seismic waves.
https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us7000tbwb...
USGS is a fact finding organization. They do not regulate. They have been around since 1879. The land surveys they have done made huge impact on society. The reliability of surveys that they have facilitated has made an impact on industrial civilization that few will understand or ever hear about.
As I've heard tell, this was a glacial collapse into and blocking a river, which then built up a head of pressure behind it, bursting to release a hammer blow of river water and debris that travelled a great distance.
Similar things can happen due to landslides into rivers; it depends on the topology of the land, here long narrow valleys carved out by heavy water flows.
The warning being, don't live in a natural "drainpipe".
In mountainous regions that's often not much of an option, there's a lot of vertical sides and valley bottoms.
That might take some infrastructure to cover everywhere such things can happen (eg: the beds of rivers in Western Australia's Pilbara and Kimberley regions have a high flash flooding risk in the wet season.
exceptionaly brutal cctv footage from the tibet/nepal border, so many people that there is a tiny chance that perhaps one of them was tossed clear, but of the rest there will be no remains. other videos shows that the flood "water" is so thick with mud that it is sheering off in sheets and one more shows it ripping out a concrete bridge that then floats away on top. *disturbing video
fixed, but some things are better off wrong perhaps