More than 900 people in Nepal are confirmed dead after a massive wall of water, mud and debris crashed through a Himalayan river valley on the border with Tibet. More than 4,200 people are missing in Nepal and hundreds more in Tibet. Families are searching hospitals for loved ones, and crews have buried hundreds of unidentified bodies in shallow graves. Rescue efforts are also underway for more than 900 hydropower workers, believed to be trapped in more than a dozen underground tunnels blocked by debris. The cause of the flash flooding is believed to have been the collapse of a glacier in the mountains, leading a wave of water, rocks and debris to carve its way through the valley.
“This is a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions,” says journalist Kunda Dixit, speaking to Democracy Now! from the Nepalese capital of Kathmandu.
“We used to say that the glaciers are melting in the Himalaya. Now it seems like the mountains are cracking up,” says Dixit. “This has sort of redefined what global warming and climate change is doing, not just to Nepal and the Himalaya, but to the planet.”
