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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World

Climate injustices have been laid bare in the Nepal-Tibet flood disaster

A woman retrieves personal belongings from the mud in a community impacted by a glacial flood in Nuwakot, Nepal, Monday.
A woman retrieves personal belongings from the mud in a community impacted by the glacial flood in Nuwakot, Nepal. Photograph: Suryams Upreti/AAP

The recent glacial collapse and catastrophic floods in Nepal and Tibet are not isolated tragedies (Report, 28 August). They reflect accelerating climate disruption that disproportionately affects the countries and people that are least responsible for global emissions.

As climate change intensifies, glaciers around the world, including in the Himalayas, are melting at unprecedented rates, destabilising ecosystems and causing glacial collapse and ice-and-rock landslides, destroying settlements, villages and livelihoods in minutes. No one died when a Swiss glacier collapsed last year, owing to early-warning systems that were in place. But a lack of early-warning systems means that the disaster in Nepal and Tibet has led to hundreds of deaths and thousands missing.

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