Building boom puts 300,000 people in the path of potential Himalayan disasters
The construction of tourism facilities, housing, and infrastructure has surged in parts of Nepal and India's Uttarakhand.
At least 300,000 people in parts of the Himalayan region could now be living in the path of potential disasters, a new study suggests.
Researchers found that the amount of built-up land in high-risk zones in northern Nepal, parts of south-eastern Tibet and a corner of India's Uttarakhand had grown by about 45% between 2016 and 2023.
In areas particularly threatened by flooding from glacial lakes, development increased even faster, rising by almost 78% over the same period, according to the peer-reviewed study published in Scientific Reports.
But during the catastrophic flooding on 26 August, locals in Rasuwa district say the river level had risen by 70m (230ft) at some points - so even buildings that were relatively far from the river banks were hit and buried by debris-sludge.