The devastating flooding in Nepal is analogous to not less than 4 main incidents in India over the past decade-and-a-half, every involving a sudden launch of enormous volumes of waters within the mountainous rivers.
However there are extra warning bells for India. As rising temperatures and shifting regional precipitation patterns scale back the soundness of the Himalayan glaciers, a few of them may evolve into “hanging glaciers” — ice plenty perched on steep slopes that may detach and set off large avalanches.
An April 2026 examine revealed in Nature journal has discovered that there are as many as 219 hanging glaciers within the Alaknanda basin of the Garhwal Himalayas. Practically a 3rd of this unstable ice, in line with the examine, is concentrated within the Higher Alaknanda basin.
How do hanging glaciers type?
Distribution of glaciers within the Alaknanda basin. Credit score: ‘Basin-scale stock and publicity evaluation of hanging glaciers, Central Himalaya’
The examine — by Ashim Sattar of the Faculty of Earth, Ocean and Local weather Sciences, Indian Institute of Expertise, Bhubaneswar and Nandu Krishnan of the Divecha Centre for Local weather Change, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, alongside two colleagues — flagged that Himalayan glaciers are more and more exhibiting “geometric and dynamic instability” owing to speedy warming and local weather variability.
Unstable glaciers are basically these whose velocity might change by an order of magnitude and extra throughout a relatively quick time period. The result’s redistribution of ice, accompanied by geometric and structural-and-tectonic shifts.
This instability then results in the event of hanging glaciers on steep slopes. Whereas these glaciers have been extensively studied within the Alps, basin-scale assessments within the Himalayas stay restricted.
What occurs in the event that they break off?
Kinds of hanging glaciers. Credit score: ‘Basin-scale stock and publicity evaluation of hanging glaciers, Central Himalaya’
Hanging glaciers pose a big threat of break-offs. The examine’s simulations indicated that the resultant avalanche flows may exceed 50 metres in top in Uttarakhand’s Badrinath-Mana sector. Such a extreme occasion would swallow main settlements and infrastructure.
Story continues beneath this advert
The break-offs from hanging glaciers can even set off secondary hazards comparable to glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs).
The examine recognized a complete of 219 hanging glaciers within the Alaknanda basin of the Garhwal Himalayas, masking 71.7 ± 3.5 sq km, with an estimated ice quantity of two.39 ± 0.42 km³, together with 0.74 ± 0.14 km³ of hanging ice mass.
Rising threat
Hanging glaciers within the Alaknanda basin. Credit score: Basin-scale stock and publicity evaluation of hanging glaciers, Central Himalaya
Publicity to avalanche-related dangers on this basin is projected to extend over the subsequent decade, with 120% extra buildings and infrastructure land space in danger by 2030 in comparison with 2000, mentioned the examine.
The variety of folks dwelling in these at-risk areas, in the meantime, is projected to surge by 17% over the identical interval.
Story continues beneath this advert
This underscores the necessity for systematic identification and monitoring of high-risk glaciers, alongside risk-informed land-use planning, to scale back downstream hazards in mountain areas. What occurred in Nepal gives a transparent warning signal.
“This examine… sadly predicted the tragic occasions (and)… underscores the necessity to monitor such ‘hanging glaciers’ carefully to provide higher warning of such catastrophes in future to weak downstream communities. This may require a lot larger funding of monitoring packages; however such funding is small in comparison with the prices of lack of life and livelihoods,” Pam Pearson, Director of Worldwide Cryosphere Local weather Initiative (ICCI) instructed The Indian Specific.
“This also needs to, nonetheless, show a wake-up name that we actually should settle for that the period of fossil gasoline use wants to finish, and transition to carbon-free vitality sources, and on an emergency foundation. Right here once more, the financial prices of such a transition might be far lower than the price of continued use, when it comes to such disasters alongside different financial burdens from drought (partially from lesser snowpack) and heatwaves,” mentioned Pearson.
The Burlington, Vermont-based ICCI had finished a “capsule” abstract of the April 2026 examine, flagging it as a warning.
Story continues beneath this advert
“In any other case, these sorts of extremely damaging occasions — the place on this case, it seems that the previously-frozen floor below the glacier thawed to such an extent that it collapsed, carrying an enormous piece of the glacier with it on a scale beforehand seen solely in Greenland or Antarctica — will solely proceed and intensify,” Pearson mentioned.
Getting ready for calamity
One other related examine, revealed in Nature on March 6, made an attention-grabbing level of preparedness within the occasion of a calamity within the warming Himalayas.
The examine, by Anshuman Bhardwaj, Rayees Ahmed and two different colleagues, in contrast two occasions.
The primary was the 2021 Chamoli catastrophe which noticed an enormous wall of ice and rock collapse into the Rishiganga valley. The occasion destroyed hydropower vegetation, swept away bridges and killed over 200 folks.
Story continues beneath this advert
4 years later, a big ice–rock avalanche struck and buried many of the village of Blatten in Switzerland. Just one individual died.
The distinction between disaster and survival, the examine mentioned, “was not luck, however preparedness, monitoring, and speedy response”. In Blatten, authorities and residents acted on precursory indicators of slope instability, enabling well timed evacuation.
Bhardwaj, one of many examine’s authors, instructed The Indian Specific: “The Nepal occasion highlights that we have to consider these as cascading hazards, fairly than remoted landslides, avalanches, or floods… Second, we have to strengthen anticipatory monitoring and preparedness… Third, that is additionally a transboundary risk-management concern… Lastly, we ought to be cautious to not rush course of attribution whereas responding to the speedy emergency.”
“Total, the Nepal occasion reinforces the central message of our work: the Himalaya must shift from reacting to cryospheric disasters to anticipating them. With a warming Himalaya, the situations that destabilise ice and rock have gotten extra widespread, making preparedness more and more pressing. The aim is to not predict each avalanche, however to systematically scale back the chance {that a} foreseeable mountain hazard turns into an avoidable human disaster,” mentioned Bhardwaj, who can also be the Head of Division (Planetary Sciences) and Programme Director (MSc Planetary Sciences) on the Faculty of Geosciences, College of Aberdeen.
