CRISIS, NOT CRY: Giving Up Is Not in Our Blood
For generations, Nepalis have lived among mountains that give beauty and demand courage. The late Nirmal “Nims Dai” Purja embodied that spirit. Reflecting on our relationship with nature, he warned: “If we don’t listen, nature will teach us the lesson.” On August 26, that lesson arrived with terrifying force. This was not simply a monsoon flood. USGS scientists found that rapid slope failure involving a glacier in Langtang National Park triggered a catastrophic debris flow and flood that travelled nearly 100 kilometres through the Lhende and Trishuli river systems. The event generated seismic energy equivalent to a magnitude-5.2 earthquake. USGS says it remains unclear whether it was a landslide incorporating glacier ice or a glacial collapse. Climate change is not the sole trigger—but it is part of the warning. A warming climate can destabilise glaciers, alter freeze-thaw conditions and increase cascading high-mountain hazards. In Nepal’s steep, young and fragile terrain, one mountain...