Everest’s Sherpas fear their homeland is at risk of washing away

Sitting at an altitude of around 3, 800m ( 12, 467ft ) is Thame, a small Sherpa village in Nepal’s Everest region.

It is home to some record-holding Sherpa climbers, including Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, the first man to climb Mount Everest along with adventurer Edmund Hillary.

However, after a glacial lakes burst its banks on August 16, the town was engulfed by snowy flood waters, displacing around 60 people and destroying more than a few residences and hotels, as well as a university and medical facility.

Around 300 of the village’s residents are now asking themselves whether it is also safe to live there any more as a result of the event.

No injuries or fatalities were reported, but Sherpa residents said they were fortunate that the flood occurred during the daytime, when everyone was alive and the alerts arrived immediately.

” If this had happened at night time, between 200 to 300 people would have lost their lives”, Ang Tshering Sherpa, past president of Nepal Mountaineering Association said.

” We are still in shock, and we are still crying when we (villagers ) talk to each other”, said Yangji Doma Sherpa, a native of Thame who was born in the village.

The bigger issue is whether this area is currently safe to live in. People do n’t feel safe because this flood has shown that we are currently in an even more dangerous situation.

Another rural residents have experienced similar hardship.

” Some components of our town were wiped away by the storm, but we managed to run up the hill,” said Pasang Sherpa at Tok Tok town, which is a walk downhill from Thame in about two days.

” Brochures and debris were swept down by the then watery and bubbly river, turning it into a dark brown.”

I am also shaken because the look and the tone were thus spooky. I’ve found refuge in a local village, and I’m considering whether or not I should always go back to Tok Tok.

Locals claim that a large portion of the risk may be reduced if proper monitoring were in place for glacial lake located inland of human settlements.

While a dozen rivers have drawn the attention of experts and authorities, they added, the rest are basically ignored.

Nevertheless, disaster planning is non-existent in many townships.

A few settlements downstream of the Imja glacial lakes have been taught how to operate in the event of a flood, according to Ms. Doma Sherpa.

” But there has been no instruction in our community anymore”.

Four incidents occurred in the Dudhkosi valley valley near Everest out of the more than a dozen glacial lake outbursts that have been documented in Nepal over the past 50 years.

One incident occurred upstream of Thame in 1985, when a big avalanche slammed into the Dig Tsho glacier river and created a storm that topped the bridge. A hydroelectricity plant downstream was destroyed by the flood, which also caused more than$ 3 million in damage.

Not a problem that only affects Thame, the lack of checking is not one-sided by it.

In the Himalayas, there are hundreds of ice and glacial lakes, but only a small percentage of those in the Mountain region are monitored and equipped with premature flood warning systems.

Global warming is also accelerating glacier dissolving, which could cause lake to overflow.

A study conducted by the University of Leeds in 2021 found that over the past few decades Himalayan ice have lost snow ten times more quickly than the regular price since their development, which dates back 400 to 700 years.

According to a study that was published in the Nature book in 2022, South Col Glacier on Mount Everest may have lost half of its size since the 1990s as a result of heat.

Imja Lake, which is located below Mount Everest, was drained in 2016 after authorities discovered it was in risk of overflowing and flooding nearby communities, trekking trails, and roads.

However, according to experts, several new rivers have formed in recent years, while others have expanded and joined forces to be larger people.

The destabilization of the native scenery, which is caused by fast-retreating ice, adds to the risk by creating more floods and avalanches that you put into the lakes and cause them to burst, further aggravating the situation.

Officials claim to have monitored around 20 glacial rivers in the Nepali Himalayas and have listed them as dangerous, but the two that burst on August 16 were none mentioned in that list nor closely monitored by authorities.

The damage is so great, according to Mr. Tshering Sherpa,” but they were the smallest people, and no one cared about them.”

” Think what might occur if the great ones suddenly burst out. In the Mountain area, there are many of them.

A helicopter inspection by Nepal’s Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority ( NDRRMA ) revealed there were a total of five small glacial lakes close to the source of the flooding. One of them had half burst, another had burst fully.

Which means that the three different lakes at the same place was burst out at the same time, according to Ms. Doma Sherpa.

” Now that people know that, they do n’t feel safe anymore. We are mainly concerned about older people because of their accessibility issues.

Visitors claim that some damages caused by floods are then irreparable, and the effects of global warming on Himalayan glaciers and lakes have only grown worse since then.

The Thame River’s course changed as a result of Friday’s storm, which changed while it used to pass through the Khumbu valley’s left bank. It now flows right through the town, claiming nearly half of the land.

” Much of the remaining property today is full of dust and rock”, Ms Doma Sherpa said.

” This is not the same as rebuilding the homes that the earthquake destroyed.” What can you create on when you have no property left?

The only electricity station in the area that provides energy to the area has also been damaged by the storm.

After the catastrophe, which caused the place to stop working, mud and debris accumulated in the reservoir.

” As a result, energy source has been cut off, and because of that telecom techniques were also not functioning”, Mingma Sherpa, head of a junior team at Namche, a big tourist spot near Thame, said.

Since the crisis struck, the region has been completely disconnected from the outside world. This is quite frightening”.

” This catastrophe has shown how uncomfortable and vulnerable we are,” said one of the people who had been worried about slow commencement effects of climate change, such as dwindling water resources.

State leaders are aware of the concerns of the area.

The power is then assembling a team of experts to” studie the risks posed by the three remaining lakes downstream of Thame town and determine whether the upstream settlement places are safe to live in or not,” according to Anil Pokhrel, mind of NDRRMA.

” We are even working on disaster risk reduction in the region”, she added.

Members of native Sherpa areas, but, say they’ve seen more talk and less motion over the years when it comes to dealing with challenges from glacial lakes outbursts.

” We hear all great ideas, especially during meetings, and soon the ideas are forgotten”, Ms Doma Sherpa said.

” But we ca n’t forget what this flood has done,” he says, adding that there are lakes nearby that can cause disasters for us at any time.