The Himalayan foothills have been devastated. On August 26, a glacier collapse in the border area between Nepal and Tibet triggered landslides and floods, claiming hundreds of lives and leaving over 1,400 people missing. The collapse of a massive glacier in the Himalayas caused landslides, and the resulting debris led to rivers overflowing, quickly inundating villages.
As global warming weakens the permafrost that has held rocks and glaciers together for thousands of years, a new type of disaster is emerging where entire glaciers collapse. The term 'permanent' has become misleading. The recent repeated occurrences of similar glacier collapses in this border area indicate that climate change has shifted from a variable to a constant factor.
This incident has also revealed the limitations of early warning systems. Nepal has operated a sensor network to monitor glacial lake water levels, but it was ineffective against the rapid onset of debris flow disasters caused by the combination of landslides and glacier collapses. The system designed to predict and prepare for risks failed to keep pace with the emergence of new disaster types. Nepal has paid a heavy price to confirm that even sophisticated systems can be rendered useless in the face of unforeseen disasters.
This climate crisis is not limited to the Himalayas; it also affects countries like South Korea. According to a 2021 analysis by Greenpeace, if greenhouse gas emissions continue at the current rate, more than 5% of the Korean Peninsula could be submerged by 2030, affecting 3.32 million people. Areas with high population density along the western coast, such as Gyeonggi Province and Incheon, are expected to suffer significant damage, with the possibility of Incheon International Airport being completely submerged. Low-lying areas along the western coast, such as Dangjin in South Chungcheong Province and Gunsan and Gimje in North Jeolla Province, are particularly vulnerable to storm surges due to their elevation.
Economic losses in just seven Asian cities are projected to reach $724 billion by 2030, with damages in Seoul estimated in the trillions of won. Recent years have seen repeated localized heavy rainfall, basement flooding, urban river overflow, and heatwaves, demonstrating that this climate crisis is not a distant scenario but a current reality. Just two weeks ago, the Gyeongnam region experienced 'once-in-200-years' rainfall. The climate crisis is no longer just a problem for Pacific island nations or remote Himalayan villages; it has infiltrated the streets of Seoul and Incheon.
Therefore, the natural disaster that occurred in Nepal and Tibet should not be dismissed as a distant issue. Natural disasters resulting from weather anomalies do not selectively target only the risks we have chosen to monitor. This calls for a detailed investigation of landslide-prone areas, the expansion of real-time measurement networks, and a reassessment of design standards for national infrastructure such as airports, ports, and power plants to respond to rising sea levels. Additionally, an alert system that encompasses complex disaster scenarios beyond existing manuals is necessary.
In the era of climate change, disasters are likely to manifest in ways that exceed past experiences and are not accounted for in existing manuals. What is needed is not just better preparation for past disasters but the ability to imagine disasters that have never occurred before. The collapse of the Himalayan foothills is a matter for Nepal, but it is we who must dismantle the assumption of 'it won't happen to us.'
* This article has been translated by AI.
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