More than 900 people have now been confirmed dead and over 3000 are still missing following a glacier collapse on the Nepal-Tibet border.

More than 800 people are now known to have died and more than 3000 are still missing following a glacier collapse on the border between Nepal and Tibet on Wednesday 26 August 2026. The incident was first recorded as a Magnitude 4.4 Earthquake by the United States Geological Survey at 2.52 am GMT, which is 8.37 am in Nepal and 10.52 am in Tibet (Tibet has been part of China since the 1950s, and China uses a single time-zone for all its territory, leading to a two-and-a-half hour time gap between Tibet and Nepal, despite their having a similar longitude), a figure which was revised to a Magnitude 5.2 event shortly after. Seven minutes after this a flash flood and debris flow hit the Gyirong Port border crossing between Nepal and Tibet, before passing along the Lhende Khola River Valley in Nepal and into the Trishuli River system.

CCTV footage of a flash flood and debris flow hit the Gyirong Port border crossing between Nepal and Tibet on Wednesday 26 August 2026. Hong Kong Standard.

This event was initially interpreted as an Earthquake-induced glacier collapse, probably caused by a glacier shattering and releasing a melt-lake which had built up behind it. Such events are the most common form of glacier collapse, and are particularly associated with warming global temperatures. Essentially, glaciers begin to melt behind their leading edge, with the amount of ice in front of the growing lake slowly decreasing till the whole edifice collapses. However satellite images taken in the days before the collapse revealed no such lake, and it is now thought that a chunk of glacier with an area of about 200 000 m², and a volume of 1-2 million m³, broke off a glacier at an altitude of between 5200  m and 5400 m above sealevel, then dropped vertically about 1200 m into the valley below. This impact caused the event which the United States Geological Survey interpreted as an Earthquake.

CCTV footage of a debris flow hitting the Gyrong Port Border Crossing on Wednesday 26 August 2026. Resonoud News (响亮新闻)/Wikimedia Commons.

Approximately seven minutes after this initial collapse, the Gyirong Port Border Crossing was hit by a flood and debris flow 80 m high, travelling at approximately 180 km per hour (50 m per second). This remarkable velocity was driven largely by the steep nature of the high mountain valleys, with the Gyirong Port border crossing being approximately 3000 m lower than the initial impact point of the falling glacier. The debris flow continued down the valley for approximately 100 km, sweeping away 41 bridges and 42 km of road, as well as the Gyirong Port border crossing in Tibet and the corresponding Rasuwagadhi Customs Office in Nepal, as well as numerous homes and other buildings, and causing significant damage to six hydroelectric projects in Nepal. Bodies of victims of this flood event have been found as far away as Uttar Pradesh in northern India, more than 250 km from the initial glacier collapse event.

The remains of a bridge in Nepal swept away by the 26 August 2026 floods. Ritesh Shukla/Getty Images.

Glacier collapses are a part of the natural cycle of events within the Himalayas. The mountains here are not static, but are actively growing as the northward movement of the Indian Plate pushes up the overlying Eurasian plate. This means that glaciers which sit upon these mountains are slowly raised to ever higher altitudes, while at the same time becoming ever more steeply inclined. Eventually, this situation becomes unstable, and gravity overcomes the ability of the ice to stick to the underlying rocks, causing sections of glacier to collapse down the sides of the mountains.

Block diagram showing how the impact of the Indian Plate into Eurasia is causing uplift on the Tibetan Plateau. Jayne Doucette/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

This situation is made significantly worse by rising global temperatures, with the Himalayan region warming at twice the global average, which lead to higher rates of melting on glaciers in the Himalayas. The problem here is not just that the ice melts, but that when it does the water tends to percolate downward through any cracks or holes in the glacier surface, eventually pooling on the underside of the glacier. This creates a layer of liquid water over which the glacier can flow, which is the natural way in which glaciers move in lowland areas, but can lead to catastrophic consequences on high, steeply inclined glaciers.

This warming does not just threaten glaciers in these regions; many of the highest mountains are effectively rubble piles held together by ice and frozen soil (permafrost). As the Himalayas warm this ice can thaw, leading to parts of mountains breaking away, leading to more and larger landslides and rockfalls in an area where these are already a major threat to both lives and infrastructure. 

Rescue efforts following the 26 August event have been greatly impacted by the loss of roads and bridges, as well as the large amounts of mud and silt left behind by the floods. Rescue workers have often had to wade through deep mud to reach communities cut off by the floods, with other communities only accessible by helicopter. 

Floodwaters and debris passing through a community in Nepal on Wednesday 26 August 2026. Safal Prakash Shrestha/JNA Press/ZUMA Press/Shutterstock.

Concerns were raised about a second flood hitting the area on Thursday 27 August, after Chinese authorities discovered a barrier lake which had formed behind debris deposited at the confluence of the Chhochen Khola and Purepu Tsangpo rivers in Tibet. At the time, there was an estimated three million cubic metres of water in this lake, which had begun to overtop the barrier, leading to fears of an imminent collapse. However, this lake subsequently drained away naturally without Human interference, and had largely disappeared by Sunday 30 August. 

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Magnitude 5.6 Earthquake in Bhutan.

The United States Geological Survey recorded a Magnitude 5.6 Earthquake at a depth of 10.0 km, about 15 km to the northwest of the city of Punākha, in Punākha District, Bhutan, slightly after 11.35 pm local time (slightly after 5.35 pm GMT) on Sunday 7 June 2026. There are no reports of any damage or casualties arising from this quake, but people have reported feeling it as far away as Tibet, India, and Bangladesh.

The approximate location of the 7 June 2026 Bhutan Earthquake. USGS.

Earthquake activity in the area is caused by the uplift of the Tibetan Plateau, due to the impact of India into Eurasia to the south. he Indian Plate is moving northwards at a rate of 5 cm per year, causing it to impact into Eurasia, which is also moving northward, but only at a rate of 2 cm per year. The collision of the Indian and Eurasian plates has lead to the formation of the Himalayan Mountains, the Tibetan Plateau, and the mountains of southwest China, Central Asia and the Hindu Kush.

Block diagram showing how the impact of the Indian Plate into Eurasia is causing uplift on the Tibetan Plateau. Jayne Doucette/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Much of northern India and neighbouring areas of Central Asia and the Himalayas, are prone to Earthquakes caused by the impact of the Indian Plate into Eurasia from the south. When two tectonic plates collide in this way and one or both are oceanic then one will be subducted beneath the other (if one of the plates is continental then the other will be subducted), but if both plates are continental then subduction will not fully occur, but instead the plates will crumple, leading to folding and uplift (and quite a lot of Earthquakes). 

The movement of India into Eurasia over the last 71 million years. USGS.

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Twelve confirmed deaths following Magnitude 5.8 Earthquake in Afghanistan.

The United States Geological Survey recorded a Magnitude 5.8 Earthquake at a depth of 186.4 km, roughly 35 km to the south of the town of Jurm in Badakhshan Province, northern Afghanistan, slightly after 8.40 pm local time (slightly after 4.10 pm GMT on Friday 3 April 2026. The Earthquake was felt across Afghanistan, as well as southern Tajikistan, northern Pakistan, and India as far as New Delhi. 

Twelve people have been confirmed to have been killed by the event, eight of them members of the same family who died when their house collapsed in the Gosfand Dara area of Kabul province, according to the Afghan Red Crescent Society. The only member of the family reported to have survived the collapse was a two-year-old boy, who is said to have been badly injured. The remaining four people killed were in separate incidents to the east of Kabul. Another three people have been reported to have been injured, with five houses destroyed and 33 damaged, affecting 40 families across  Kabul, Panjshir, Logar, Nangarhar, Laghman and Nuristan provinces. This pattern of causing little damage close to the epicentre but more harm in an area a considerable distance from the epicentre is typical of deep Earthquakes, the energy of which is dispersed over a wide distance before reaching the surface.

The approximate location of the 3 April 2026 Afghanistan Earthquake. USGS.

The boundary between the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates runs close to northern Afghanistan. The Indian Plate is moving northward relative to the Eurasian Plate, causing folding and uplift along this boundary, which has led to the formation of the Hindu Kush Mountains of Afghanistan, the Himalayas and the other mountain ranges of Central Asia., and which makes the nations in this boundary zone prone to Earthquakes.

Plate boundaries and movements beneath southern Pakistan, Iran and the Arabian Sea. University of Southampton.

While the occurrence of Earthquakes in Afghanistan is inevitable, the situation is made far worse by the country's weak infrastructure, with few buildings having any form of Earthquake-proofing. Homes are typically made from concrete and brick in urban areas, and wood and mud brick in rural areas, with little in the way of building regulations, and neither material help nor advice available to people who might want to invest in improving the resilience of their properties. Previous natural disasters in Afghanistan have seen many people displaced internally by the loss of both homes and infrastructure as well as shortages of drinkable water, and local hospitals and medical centres struggling to cope due to shortages of medicines, equipment, and staff (in particular female staff, most of whom have been forced to leave their occupations due to the restrictive laws of the Taliban regime).

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At least ten dead and more than 100 injured following Magnitude 5.5 Earthquake in central Bangladesh.

The United States Geological Survey recorded a Magnitude 5.5 Earthquake at a depth of about 10 km, roughly 30 km to the northeast of the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, slightly after 10.35 local time (slightly after 4.35 am GMT) on Saturday 22 November 2025. At least ten people, including at least one child, have died as a result of the event, with more than 100 injured. Most of those killed or injured appear to have been struck by debris falling from buildings in densely populated urban areas; three people were reportedly killed in a single incident when they were struck by a falling balcony. The event was felt across Bangladesh, as well as neighbouring areas of India.

Debris which fell from buildings into a crowded street in Dhaka, Bangladesh, during an Earthquake on 22 November 2025. Reuters.

Earthquake activity in northern Bangladesh is influenced by the uplift of the Tibetan Plateau, due to the impact of India into Eurasia to the south. The Indian Plate is moving northwards at a rate of 5 cm per year, causing it to impact into Eurasia, which is also moving northward, but only at a rate of 2 cm per year. The collision of the Indian and Eurasian plates has led to the formation of the Himalayan Mountains, the Tibetan Plateau, and the mountains of southwest China, Central Asia and the Hindu Kush.

Block diagram showing how the impact of the Indian Plate into Eurasia is causing uplift on the Tibetan Plateau. Jayne Doucette/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Eastern Bangladesh is also in an area particularly prone to Earthquakes; much of nearby Myanmar lies on the Burma Plate, a small tectonic plate caught between  the Eurasian Plate to the northeast, the Indian Plate to the west and southwest and the Sunda Plate to the southeast. As these larger plates move together the Burma Plate is being squeezed and fractured, with a major fault line, the Kabaw Fault, having formed across much of the north of the country, along which the Burma Plate is slowly splitting. Most Earthquakes in the region are caused by movement on this fault.

The movement of the Burma and surrounding plates. Sheth et al. (2011).

The central part of Bangladesh is potentially affected by both tectonic systems, but is rather less prone to earthquake events, with only six Earthquakes of Magnitude 5.5 or greater since 1950. This may help to explain the level of deaths and injuries associated with this event, although building safety has been a long standing political issue in Bangladesh, marked by events such as the Tazreen Factory Fire in 2012, in which at least 112 people died in a fire at a nine-story factory building with insufficient fire escapes, and the Rana Plaza collapse in 2013, in which an eight story commercial building collapsed, killing 1134 people. Since 2013, the Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Building Safety, 2018 Transition Key Accord, and most recently the Readymade Sustainability Council, have sort to get international garment manufacturing companies operating in Bangladesh to sign up to fire and building safety protocols, but there remains little general building regulation.

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