Thawing Permafrost and Glacier Retreat Helped Set Stage for Deadly Nepal Collapse

Human-caused global warming thinned glaciers and thawed mountain permafrost, likely helping to destabilize the Himalayan slope that collapsed last month and unleashed catastrophic flooding across Nepal, according to a report released Thursday.

The report by the World Weather Attribution (WWA) cautioned that climate change was not the sole cause of the Aug. 26 disaster. A large 2015 Nepal earthquake may have weakened the rock years before the collapse, their analysis found.

"This disaster was not an extreme weather event, but the fingerprints of climate change are still clear to see in long-term changes," said Ben Clarke, a climate researcher at Imperial College London who worked on the analysis, in a press statement.

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