On the afternoon of Wednesday, August 26, a glacial collapse on the Nepal-Tibet border sent a catastrophic wave of ice, rock, mud and debris surging down the Trishuli river valley — burying towns and villages in Nepal’s Rasuwa and Nuwakot districts within minutes. Experts have described it as one of the most devastating Himalayan flood events on record, triggered by what authorities believe was a large-scale glacial detachment at high altitude, likely accelerated by rising temperatures in the region. Seven days on, the confirmed death toll across Nepal and China’s Tibet region has passed 1,000, with more than 4,500 people still missing.

The most urgent element of the rescue operation centres on the 12 hydropower projects that line the Trishuli river — at which 933 workers are unaccounted for, around 500 of whom are believed to be trapped inside tunnels swamped by mud and debris. Nepal’s army is using controlled blasts, excavators and searchlights to try to clear passages into the tunnels. Chinese and Indian experts have joined the effort. At the Trishuli 3A hydropower plant — where 42 people are listed as missing — a major operation is underway to drill through from above and pump air into the underground powerhouse while rescuers search for survivors.

The operation is complicated by the scale of the destruction. Roads and bridges that once connected the remote mountain districts have been obliterated. Poor weather has hampered helicopter flights. The mud in some tunnels stretches for several kilometres, meaning workers could be far from any entry point. Survival rooms and emergency oxygen supplies in some tunnels may give workers a chance — but experts have warned that survival probability diminishes sharply with each passing day.

Hundreds of bodies, many unidentifiable, have already been buried in shallow graves across Nepal’s lowland districts as they began decomposing in the humid monsoon weather after being swept far from where they died. For families, identification has become a desperate secondary crisis. The Red Cross estimates that more than 90,000 people have been directly affected by the floods across Nepal and Tibet — through displacement, loss of livelihoods, and the destruction of entire communities whose connection to the outside world depended on the now-collapsed road network.

For Bangladesh, the disaster carries indirect consequences. Nepal’s hydropower sector — central to a long-discussed regional energy grid that includes Bangladesh — has been significantly damaged across twelve projects. The scale of this glacial collapse also underscores the accelerating impact of climate change on Himalayan ice, which feeds the rivers that flow into Bangladesh every monsoon season. As temperatures in the Himalayas continue to rise, events of this magnitude are expected to become more frequent — not less.