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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Thirty confirmed deaths following landslide at landfill site in Guinea.

Thirty people have been confirmed dead, with another 22 people injured, six of them seriously, following a landslide at a landfill site in the Gbessia Commune ‌of Conakry, the capital of Guinea, on Sunday 23 August 2026. The incident happened at about 2.00 am local time, and caused piled waste from the city to collapse onto nearby dwellings, destroying a number of homes. Landslides are a common problem after severe weather events, as excess pore water pressure can overcome cohesion in soil and sediments, and even artificial deposits such as those found at landfill sites, allowing them to flow like liquids. Approximately 90% of all landslides are caused by heavy rainfall. 

Rescue workers and local residents search for survivors following a landslide at a landslide in Conakry, Guinea, on 23 August 2026. AFP/Getty Images.

Authorities in Conakry were reportedly aware of the dangerous situation at the waste site, and had begun to move people from homes close to the site, ahead of a planned closure from Sunday 30 August, which was to be followed by the moving of much of the accumulated waste to a site outside of the city. This move has now been brought forward, with people being more people being moved out of their homes, and waste being loaded onto trucks as it is searched for survivors or Human remains.

West Africa has a distinct two season climatic cycle, with a cool dry season during the northern winter when prevalent winds blow from the Sahara to the northeast, and a warm rainy season during the northern summer when prevalent winds blow from the Atlantic Ocean to the southwest. These warm winds from the Atlantic are laden with moisture, which can be lost rapidly when the air encounters cooler conditions, such as when it is pushed up to higher altitudes by the mountains of the Fouta Djallon in Guinea.

Rainfall and prevalent winds during the West African dry and rainy seasons. Encyclopedia Britanica.

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At least eight dead following landslide in Chongqing, China.

Eight people are known to have died and thirty four people are missing following a landslide in Pengshui County in the Chongqing Municipality of China on Friday 17 July 2026. The incident took place at about 9.10 am local time, and caused about 18 000 m³ of rock and soil (including boulders up to 3000 m³) to shift, burying ten residential buildings. Around 1100 people have been evacuated from the area around the incident, with water, electricity, and gas supplies cut off from buildings within 1 km of the landslide as a precaution. Around 800 rescue workers have been deployed to the site, with ten people dug out of the rubble so far, two of whom are described as being in a serious condition in hospital.

The scene of a landslide which killed at least eight people in Chongqing, China, on 17 July 2026. AFP.

The incident happened during heavy rains associated with the summer monsoon, with 192 mm of rain falling overnight before the landslide. Landslides are a common problem after severe weather events, as excess pore water pressure can overcome cohesion in soil and sediments, allowing them to flow like liquids. Approximately 90% of all landslides are caused by heavy rainfall. 

However, local authorities have also noted that the area where the landslide occurred is noted for its 'unpredictable' geology, with the Wujiang River cutting through uplifted an karst (eroded limestone) terrain with steep-sided valleys and many cliffs prone to major rockfalls. 

Rescue workers surveying the site of the 17 July 2026 Chongqing landslide from a nearby bridge. Andy Wong/Associated Press.

Chongqing has a subtropical climate with a rainy season running from mid April to mid October, though rain falls year round. Rainfall is typically highest in June when the area often receives over 200 mm of rainfall. July is drier, but typically still has over 180 mm of rain. Prior to Human settlement, the area was largely covered by forests, with a cool temperate deciduous forest during the last Pleistocene glaciation being replaced by a broad-leafed evergreen forest in the Holocene. However, Chongquing is now one of the most densely populated areas of China, which has led to the loss of much of this forest, the roots of which would have helped to bind soils on steep-sided slopes, leaving areas such as the Wujiang River valleys exposed to heightened landslide risks, and often heavily populated.

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Three dead and five missing following landslide at construction site in Kerala.

Three people have died and another five are missing following a landslide at a construction site in Wayanad District, Kerala, at about 1.00 pm local time on Tuesday 7 July 2026. The three dead men have been identified as labourers Anmol Gorai from Jharkhand, Vikas Kumar Singh from Bihar and Chandrabhan Pal from Madhya Pradesh. The incident happened amid heavy rainfall associated with the summer monsoon, which appears to have triggered the collapse of a large pile of earth produced by the construction of a road tunnel intended to connect the town of Meppadi in Wayanad District to the village of Anakkampoyil in the neighbouring Kozhikode District. Landslides are a common problem after severe weather, as excess pore water pressure can overcome cohesion in soil and sediments, allowing them to flow like liquids. Approximately 90% of all landslides are caused by heavy rainfall.

An ongoing rescue operation at the site of a landslide in Kerala State, India. Press Trust of India.

The landslide swept across the construction site, over a nearby road where it swept several vehicles away, then over a temporary labour camp for workers at the site, then a local church and house. All work at the site, other than searching for the missing persons, has stopped pending an investigation into the incident.

Managers at the site, which is being operated by Dilip Buildcon Limited, have claimed that the landslide started on land above the construction site, and was therefore not their fault. However, local authorities have observed that the company appears to have been in breach of at least two directives issued to by the Kerala Public Works Department, one of which was to remove the spoil heap, which was perceived as dangerously large, while the other was not to allow work on the site to be carried out on the site during heavy rainfall, due to the possibility of landslides.

CCTV footage of the landslide sweeping vehicles from a road. India Today.

The tunnel project was approved in 2020, and is intended to relieve pressure on the Thamarassery Ghat Road, which is prone to closures due to landslides during the monsoon season. However, from the outset it has been opposed by environmental groups in Kerala, who were worried that it would affect areas which form a key part of the Western Ghats Biodiversity Hotspot, in particular forests used by wild Elephants, and that there was a danger of tunnelling activities making the hillsides more prone to landslides.

A bus swept into a ravine by the 7 July 2026 Wayanad landslide. Press Trust of India.

These concerns form part of a wider dispute between the Indian Government, which considers large infrastructure projects to be a vital part of its mission to raise millions of Indian citizens out of poverty, and environmentalists, who consider many of these projects to be poorly thought out, and not to take into account the special environmental needs of places such the Western Ghats, nor the current or projected future climate of the region. While such objections are often depicted by India's politicians as being anti-development sentiments which will condemn future generations to poverty, environmentalists worry that large projects which do not take into account the environment and climate risk failure, leaving the areas affected without any meaningful improvement to infrastructure and potentially significant environmental degradation, leaving local communities worse off than they are now.

Monsoons are tropical sea breezes triggered by heating of the land during the warmer part of the year (summer). Both the land and sea are warmed by the Sun, but the land has a lower ability to absorb heat, radiating it back so that the air above landmasses becomes significantly warmer than that over the sea, causing the air above the land to rise and drawing in water from over the sea; since this has also been warmed it carries a high evaporated water content, and brings with it heavy rainfall. In the tropical dry season the situation is reversed, as the air over the land cools more rapidly with the seasons, leading to warmer air over the sea, and thus breezes moving from the shore to the sea (where air is rising more rapidly) and a drying of the climate. 

Diagrammatic representation of wind and rainfall patterns in a tropical monsoon climate. Geosciences/University of Arizona.

Kerala has a complex seasonal cycle, driven by the presence of the Western Ghats mountain range, which largely block the dry northerly winds which dominate the climate of much of India, and its proximity to the equator, which leads to a double monsoon system. Such a double Monsoon Season is common close to the equator, where the Sun is highest overhead around the equinoxes and lowest on the horizons around the solstices, making the solstices the coolest part of the year and the equinoxes the hottest. In Kerala this results in a Southwest Monsoon, which lasts from May to September, and is driven by winds from the southern Arabian Sea dumping water onto the Western Ghats, followed by a Northwest Monsoon, which lasts from October to December, where winds from the Bay of Bengal do the same. Of the two monsoons, the southwest is the wetter, due to the proximity of the sea, with June typically being the wettest month, with an average of 341 mm of rain falling in the month.

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