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LettersChina-Nepal floods: engineering fixes are only a band-aid
Readers discuss the best long-term defence against Himalayan disasters, the Iran war, and the Ukraine war
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Every monsoon season, the Himalayan regions of Tibet and Nepal face the threat of recurring, destructive debris flows. These mud-and-rock avalanches are not purely random natural disasters. They stem from inherently fragile mountain geology, extreme terrain and increasingly unstable climatic conditions – risks steadily aggravated by human-induced environmental degradation and global warming.
The fundamental geological vulnerability comes from long-term tectonic movement. As the Indian plate continuously pushes northward into the Eurasian plate, the Himalayan bedrock remains permanently fractured and loose.
The 2015 Nepal earthquake significantly worsened this fragility. Post-event satellite mapping recorded over 24,000 landslides across central and western Nepal. Importantly, most fractured hillsides did not collapse immediately. Seismic weakness lingers for years, turning routine monsoon rain into repeated debris-flow triggers. Steep valley topography amplifies the danger.
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