Amidst the catastrophe, Alton C Byers has arrived in Nepal for a six-week visit, driven by his profound love for mountains, especially the mystic Himalayas and its resilient people.
Back in 2013, following over 40 years of working in mountain ranges all over the world, Byers decided to focus his career in the Himalayan ecosystem after experiencing a deep sense of belonging during field research.
A mountain geographer and conservationist, he is a faculty research scientist at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado Boulder, USA, and has explored the Andes, the East African Highlands, the Russian Altai, the Rocky and Appalachian mountains, besides the Himalayas.
During field work in Nepal in 2024, he identified a new lake forming at the terminus of the Kanchenjunga Glacier, and satellite imagery indicates that the lake has doubled in size between 2022 and 2024.
His current visit to Nepal will focus on building greater community resilience, risk reduction strategies, community awareness plans and long-term adaptation solutions for future climatic hazards.
The mountaineer lauds hill communities for their early adaptation to climate change through the construction of structures like gabions and high bridges for protection, but he also underlined caution. Sometimes, these aren't adequate measures during big catastrophic events. Preparing and sharing hazard maps, new early warning systems, and community preparedness plans will help, he said.
Byers, who first visited the Kanchenjunga Conservation Area with his wife Elizabeth in 2018, has been working with the KCA's management council, local non-profit Samriddha Pahad, and international donors on the development of a new Samriddha Kanchenjunga Programme since 2022.
He has not always focused on glacial hazards and community preparedness, but also launched programmes in solid waste management and alpine ecosystem conservation in Mt Everest and other regions of Nepal. This project in Eastern Nepal employs a three-phase strategy involving immediate hazard mapping and long-term mitigation planning.
Unprecedented construction in the flood plains in the past two decades and the poor performance of early warning systems threw people off guard in Nepal. Byers is all for creative phone apps and even real-time glacial lake monitoring systems to alert downstream communities in addition to official alerts. So many people were caught unawares, with some individuals tragically running downstream instead of to higher ground when the flooding occurred.
Nepali climate investigative journalist Anita Bhetwal explained during a live conversation, Examining Nepal's Deadly Flood and Its Climate Connection, held on September 1 and organized by Covering Climate Now, that the difficult geographical terrain hindered rescue operations, along with limited technology. It proved to be a huge challenge. During the Rasuwa floods, there was no time for early warnings.
She underlined the lack of regular monitoring and the minimal use of technologies. The country has only 250 river monitoring stations against 6000 rivers, which work for floods but not flash floods. There are only two early warning systems in two glacier lakes, Chho Rolpa and Imja, and just 54 sirens in Nepal.
She added that if the glaciers had been monitored closely beforehand, and if there had been an indication that a glacial collapse had occurred, it might have been possible to issue an early warning. Nepal does not have a flash-flood early warning system for this kind of event, and the glaciers are not being monitored adequately. Since the border area was destroyed within just a few minutes, there was simply not enough time to warn people at the border once the outburst started.
The change in the permafrost is alarming. Because of warming, it is becoming softer so that bedrock and glaciers are no longer as resistant to gravity as they once were. The permafrost had held rocks, boulders and ice above 5000 metres for millennia but that seems to be changing, Byers explained.
Following Nepal's disaster, concerns have been raised in Sikkim and North Bengal as both the regions have faced flash floods in recent times. The Himalayas' interconnected river system drives this apprehension. A trans-boundary river like the Teesta transcends geographic boundaries. Sikkim experienced a GLOF or Glacial Lake Outburst Flood in South Lhonak in 2023 which impacted the Teesta, a glacier-fed river originating in Sikkim, and turned its waters muddy.
The Teesta River poses continuous danger due to course changing, says Siliguri resident Avijan Saha, who works on human-wildlife conflict. Saha informed that the Chamakdangi village was washed out due to the Sikkim GLOF after the river swelled. The residents have been resettled along with those from Laltong Basti in a safer place, as reported by The Telegraph.
In the Indian Himalayas, Sikkim lies in a vulnerable zone and shares the Kanchenjunga peak, the world's third highest, with Nepal. Following the 2023 incident, the state has increased disaster preparedness through mock drills, evacuation responses and awareness campaigns.
As a state situated in the Eastern Himalayan region which is wetter and experiences more rainfall than the Western Himalayas, climate change impact is being felt in the state and the Chhangu Lake is no exception. The snowfall timing has altered.
A study says that Sikkim hosts many glacial lakes, including one of the largest and fastest growing, the South Lhonak Lake, 5200 metres from the mean sea level. A devastating Glacial Lake Outburst Flood or GLOF occurred in South Lhonak after the breaching of moraine dams on the midnight of October 3, 2023. This event collapsed the Chungthang Dam, located approximately 65 km downstream of the lake, and accelerated extensive casualties, along with infrastructural damages.
Incidentally, during his field work in Nepal in 2024, Byers had identified a new lake forming at the terminus of the Kanchenjunga Glacier. Satellite imagery indicates that the lake has doubled in size between 2022 and 2024, prompting the team to prioritize this site for urgent assessment that will lead to the generation of hazard maps to be used in forthcoming community preparedness programs and planning.
The scientist reflected on the history of glacial lake research, and noted that while studies began in the late 1980s, extensive cataloguing and systematic surveys did not gain significant momentum until 2008.
Nepal has lost one-third of its glacial ice over three decades. Catastrophic flooding originates from high-altitude geological failures triggered by thawing permafrost and unstable glacial melt and collapse, resulting in massive landslide debris flows. This debris blocks river valleys, leading to the creation of massive, unstable lakes, which eventually release a hyper-concentrated slurry flood. It has happened before in Nepal and elsewhere, and it will assuredly happen again.
It is a wake-up call for the world. Byers emphasizes an urgent need for international collaboration between experts globally to develop effective and context-specific warning systems.
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*Contact: deepanwita.t@gmail.com. The Teesta river photos are by the author. The rest are by Alton C Byers
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