The flood that swept through the border region of Nepal and Tibet this week killing hundreds and leaving thousands missing is believed to have been triggered by a massive piece of rock and ice that broke off from a mountain glacier in the Himalayas. But the devastation wrought by the deluge was likely the result of both natural and man-made factors, Northeastern University experts said. “Almost none of the destructiveness of floods these days is fluid dynamics alone,” said Auroop Ganguly, a hydrologist and distinguished professor of civil and environmental engineering at Northeastern. He explained that the precipitous fall of the chunk of ice and rock caused landslides which were further exacerbated by the fact that rivers and watersheds in the region were already waterlogged as a result of the seasonal monsoon rains.
“The huge debris of the glacier chunk mixed with the monsoon sediments…and combined with the lack of preparedness and high vulnerability and exposure – especially in the transboundary mountain regions – led to the massive devastation,” said Ganguly, who in 2019 and 2023 led a Dialogue of Civilizations, a faculty-led intensive learning experience for students, which visited Nepal and areas of the Indian Himalayas.
