By Pratibha Tuladhar, dpa =
Bahrabise, Nepal (dpa) - Devi Maya Tamangni watches the river rage just a few metres below her one-room house in a barren highland valley of Nepal.
The 42-year-old mother scrapes a living from it by sifting sand to sell to construction companies.
“We have no time to think about a flood,” she says. “I pay the government 250 rupees (2.5 dollars) every month as rent for this land. I live here because I have nowhere else to go.”
But her village of Larcha is among those threatened by melting glaciers as average temperatures rise.
There are hundreds like her in the upper Bhotekoshi basin of Sindhupalchowk district, 100 kilometres north-east of Kathmandu, including children who study in school buildings next to the river.
A flash flood in 1996 killed 54 people in the village, wiped out 22 houses and caused massive damage in the area.
Deadly floods are not uncommon in Sindhupalchowk, which shares its border with China. The Arniko highway passes through the district, the only highway connecting Nepal and China.
Scientists say the people in the region are under severe threat, as global warming is causing the glaciers to melt fast, increasing the threat of their lakes bursting their banks.
In the nearby trading town of Bahrabise, residents attribute natural calamity like floods to the anger of the gods.
The basin experienced three glacial lake outbursts in the last century. The first occurred in 1935, when the Tara Co Lake burst its matural dam. Although there were no human casualties, the flood killed livestock and damaged farmland, leaving behind a trail of debris that made cultivation impossible in some parts of the valley.
The Zhangzangbo lake breached its banks in 1964 and in 1981.
“It was close to midnight and I noticed the water had risen as far as the bridge,” says Dhanbahadur Shrestha, 69, who was making preparations for his daughter’s wedding the last time.
“My friends and I had only stepped off the bridge, and it got swept away,” he explains, speaking over the sound of the roaring Sunkoshi river.
“We couldn’t believe we were alive!”
The flood swept away five people, 41 houses, water mills, and two major bridges, including the Friendship Bridge that connects Nepal and China. Hundreds were injured and several houses damaged. The flood also damaged the Sunkoshi hydroelectric station, 150 kilometres downstream.
“We climbed to the highest point of the station and stayed there all night, waiting for the water to recede,” says Ramlal Parajuli.
"We couldn’t figure out where the water had come from, but there was so much of it everywhere.”
The flood brought down boulders measuring up to 4 metres in diameter, which remain parked at several places along the rivers.
“The difference between the impact of a glacial lake outburst and a cloudburst is that the first brings down with it heavy debris, like trees, boulders, while sweeping away everything on its path,” says Pradeep Mool, a scientist working with International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development.
While the basin has seen no major flood since 1996, the population in the area has been growing quickly.
A study conducted by the centre said that another outburst like the one in 1981 would affect about 900 households and about 5,800 people. Scientists predict one of a stronger magnitude could occur.
There are more than 3,200 glaciers in Nepal and studies say that 14 glacial lakes are at risk of bursting their natural dams made of glacier debris from rapid melting.
The two major glacial lakes threatening to burst their banks are located on the Chinese side bordering Sindhupalchowk, which put Nepal at risk downstream.
“Political will is needed to solve this problem,” Mool says. “If the two sides deal with it politically, and spend 5 to 7 million dollars to mitigate the glacial outburst and put in an early warning system for the flash flood, it is possible to avert the danger to some extent.”
But infrastructure in the area is poor and no warning system is in place for residents, who are mostly unaware of the threat from the mountains above them.
“If a flood comes, it comes, what can one do about it?” Tamangni says.
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