The cause of the powerful torrents of floodwater that carved a devastating path through Nepal and Tibet — swallowing towns, roads and bridges — is not yet clear, but Nepal is a hotspot for climate disasters as the planet heats up.
Vast swaths of ice are melting and rocky mountainsides are destabilizing, becoming less solid and more fluid. As glaciers turn to water and create massive lakes in high mountain elevations, summertime melting can release these lakes downstream. On top of it all, climate change is leading to more extreme rainfall that can trigger deadly flooding.
Scientists are still working to determine exactly what caused the disaster, but here’s what we know (and don’t know) so far.
Likely: A landslide-triggered flood
At 8:37 a.m. local time, a 4.4 magnitude earthquake was reported by US Geological Survey to have struck along the Nepal-China border, north of Kathmandu.
