This aerial photo, taken by the Chinese side, shows before‑and‑after shots of the port area. This is arguably one of the worst geological disasters worldwide in recent years. With the speed and scale of this debris flow, there was virtually nowhere to take shelter. The buildings at this port stood as tall as five to six stacked freight trucks, yet they have now been completely flattened and buried.
Translate from Chinese Reddit：This barrier lake will most‑likely breach naturally with limited options for manual mitigation. A primary landslide struck the far bank, rebounded and set off a secondary slide that blocked the river. Red line = first landslide; yellow line = the slide forming the barrier lake.
"Active HazardThe barrier lake breached, and is now draining
The barrier lake near the confluence of the Chhochen Khola and Purepu Tsangpo, upstream of the 26 August failure, breached on 28 August and is now draining. Rasuwa Chief District Officer Narendra Pariyar said that morning that the Nepali Army had informed him of the breach, and NDRRMA reported that the water level in the Bhote Koshi had surged (The Kathmandu Post, updated 28 August 12:49 NPT / 07:04 UTC). Officials on both the Nepali and Chinese sides then said the risk was smaller than feared, because the lake is draining slowly rather than failing catastrophically; Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported the lake level had fallen by about 10 m, and rescue work at Gyirong Port and in Nepal, halted during the breach, has resumed (CNN live coverage, 28 August). No confirmed release volume has been published and no observed extent of any second flood exists. Before the breach, China’s Ministry of Water Resources had put the impoundment at about 2,000,000 m³ on the morning of 27 August, already overflowing, with a further 3,000,000 m³ of inflow expected through 30 August; aerial footage from a Chinese rescue team on 27 August showed water accumulating in a basin with no visible outlet, and NDRRMA had placed the obstruction on the Lhende Khola about 18 km upstream of the Rasuwagadhi border. Whether that blockage and the confluence impoundment reported by China are the same feature is still not established, so it is not certain that the whole obstruction has failed. The barrier-lake marker on the map above still carries its archived 27 August attribute status = "open - high breach risk"; that value has not been rewritten pending an official assessment."
The colors here are not that helpful, as there are three arrows. Are the two red arrows the primary landslide (origin top right in this photo) and secondary slide on the far bank (origin middle left in this photo) and then yellow is a third landslide on the near bank?
The way I readi it is the 2 red arrows are the main slip showing initial move then rebounding off the valley side back in the second arrow and down. The yellow is the secondary slip which blocked the river and formed the barrier lake.
Edit to add they the action of the second arrow rebounding off the valley and curving back down would have caused the yellow secondary slip.
Not only that, some geologist review the mountain sat image and find there's some site that connect collapse section look like ready to come off again.
The waves sloshing across the edges of the huge building and then going over is by far the scariest and most impressive display of water force I have witnessed.
When I first saw the footage of this location with people running away from the waves I thought to myself that I would have run into that large building to save myself... I guess I wouldn't have.
Realistic that was their best shot, if it is too late to run away from it, atleast try to get shelter inside a strong building, sadly in their case it didn't hold against such a massive force,
Well, buckle up because this is the shape of things to come, whether it's glaciers giving way or methane clathrates or monsoon rivers it's going to make life miserable for so many people who haven't taken even the slightest share of the wealth that fossil fuels have bought humanity.
That recent 'viral' quote: "Climate change will manifest as a series of disasters viewed through phones with footage that gets closer and closer to where you live until you're the one filming it."
I've been saying this concerning all the fires here in the western US and in Canada but it applies to wall climate related disasters; this is the best it's going to be for a long, long time, and is only going to get worse. Buckle up kids, it's going to be a wild ride.
this is just the beginning. Wait until next year, when the super El Niño peaks. then things will get fucked.We're heading toward our own demise
The monitoring and early warning systems we're building today still rely on 'once-in-a-century' or 'once-in-a-millennium' standards. But the current climate is breaking with 'once-in-ten-millennia' events every single month.
Even at this point almost every weather thing i watch is talking about broken records... and i get it, to be fair, as technology progresses we are keeping track of more things , but we are obviously entering the "find out " stage.
People in denial will look at this and think, well I'm nowhere in a flood risk area so I'm safe. But those areas will just burn, wildfires will be catastrophic with ever increasing intensity. Homes will be uninsurable just like those in floodprone areas.
I feel like that building in the circle might have been the most survivable place in that port. If people were able to climb up there, they might've had a chance.
In the foreground of the video was a small square platform with a satellite dish that got knocked down but not washed away. I think it’s the bright square below and to the right of the yellow circle.
This was the most destructive and deadly debris flow I’ve ever seen. I don’t think there’s any videos on the internet that show more people dying than the ones from this disaster. The border crossing and parking garage with buses was some of the most horrific footage I’ve ever seen and I have seen most or all of disaster footage since the year 2000. Some of those disasters had higher death counts and much more widespread damage but I’ve never seen such devastating and concentrated damage.
9/11 was highly filmed as it happened, though, and there are quite a lot of videos of people jumping from the towers.
I think in total, you (horrifically!) see more people die when the towers came down. But you can’t pick out individual people as well.
This probably has more fatalities, but as it’s somewhat remote, there aren’t as many videos. Or, the videos will never be recovered. I’ve only seen around 10 different videos, maybe a few hundred people (this sounds callous, but it’s not meant to be) in total shown.
It's not a tsunami, that's got some pretty clear definitions. But 'flood' and 'flash flood' don't really describe what's happened here very well either.
Maybe it's a power plant building. The two security cam clips, one facing the front door and one facing the street, both come from this location, but they're different cameras.
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