‘Extremely rare event:’ Miles-long microalgae bloom knocks out most of Israel’s desalination plants

A microalgae bloom has spread along Israel's Mediterranean coast. Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research institute

by  By Laura Paddison

 

A miles-long microalgae bloom in the Mediterranean Sea has been blamed for temporarily knocking offline many of Israel’s major desalination plants this week, threatening its main source of drinking water.

Five of the country’s six coastal desalination plants — which convert seawater into drinkable water — shut down on Sunday, according to Mekorot, Israel’s national water company. Since then, some of these facilities, which are privately owned and operated, have partially resumed operations, but only one was operating at full capacity on Thursday.

“An event of this kind has never occurred before in Israel … it was an extremely rare event,” said Lior Gutman, a spokesperson for Mekorot, although he stressed in roughly 99% of cases, there has been no drinking water shortage. 

 

Still, it’s an alarming situation given the country’s heavy dependence on desalination for drinking water. Israel is arid and has neither big rivers nor abundant rainfall, but its mastery of this technology has made it a water superpower. Desalination now provides at least 65% of its drinking water, with most plants located on the Mediterranean coast.

The problems started at the weekend, as a “sporadic, vast event of contaminates occurred across the Israeli coastline,” said Edo Bar-Zeev, an associate professor in water research at Ben-Gurion University, in Israel. When he and other scientists looked closer, they discovered it was microalgae, tiny organisms that feed on sunlight, carbon dioxide and nutrients in the water — and which can grow rapidly. 

Microscope images of microalgae from the bloom that formed along the Israeli coast. Tali Covas

 

The microalgae bloom — stretching more than a dozen miles at least, according to Bar-Zeev — is believed to have originated in the Nile Delta and traveled northward with the sea’s currents up Israel’s coast. This is “the first time I saw something in this extent,” said Bar-Zeev, who has been testing the coastal water for 20 years.

The country’s desalination facilities mostly use a technology called “reverse osmosis,” where water is pre-treated to remove larger contaminants, before it’s pushed through membranes which filter out salt, bacteria and other molecules to leave clean drinking water. 

 Algae, and the substances they produce, can foul and damage the membranes, said Michael Christopher Low, director of the Middle East Center at the University of Utah. If there’s too much suspended material in the water, the treatment processes cannot keep up. 

 

It’s happened before. A severe “red tide” — a harmful algae bloom — in the Gulf of Oman in 2008 and 2009 affected many desalination plants in that region.

In Israel, the government water system has “stepped in to close the gap” caused by the plant closures, Mekorot’s Gutman said. This has included pumping water from the Sea of Galilee, activating groundwater wells and using national water reserves.

Some cities have faced short-term local restrictions, including on garden irrigation and filling swimming pools, but the the main limitations affected farmers who use drinking water-quality water for irrigation, as opposed to those who use recycled water, Gutman said.

The timing compounded the problem. It happened in summer “when water demand in Israel is at its highest,” he said, adding “the situation has been challenging.” 

Israel's Water Authority places drinking water storage tanks near Damascus Gate in Jerusalem, Israel, on August 31, 2026, as part of emergency preparations after five of Israel's six seawater desalination plants were temporarily shut down. Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu/Getty Images

 

A bloom occurs when the right combination of environmental factors in the water come together that allow the algae to grow rapidly, said Tamar Guy-Haim, a marine ecologist at the Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research Institute. These include nutrients, temperature, light, currents and mixing.

Mekorot said this recent bloom was part of “very unusual combination of factors,” including a sea storm that increased turbidity — the amount of suspended matter in the water — and raised sea temperatures to 86 Fahrenheit (30 degrees Celsius) and above. 

 

The extent of the disruption is striking. Desalination facilities have been forced to close before due to algae or jellyfish, “but multiple facilities over the large portion of our coast is something that is definitely abnormal,” Ben-Zeev said.

It’s something the country needs to figure out how to deal with — and will, he added. “It’s a fair estimation that this will not be a once-in-a-lifetime kind of event … you can assume that this will occur more and more through climate change.”

As the planet heats up, driven by humans burning fossil fuels, the oceans are changing. Temperatures are at record highs, currents are shifting and stronger storms wash more pollutants into the water, including sewage and fertilizers, which can trigger huge algae blooms. 

The Sorek desalination plant near the Israeli city of Rishon LeZion on November 22, 2021. This plant was one of the five temporarily knocked offline. Gil Cohen Magen/Xinhua/Getty Images

 

This temporary crisis also exposes a broader concern, experts say.

Desalination is becoming increasingly popular, especially as the climate crisis drives more severe heat and drought, undermining water security. But this growing dependence on a centralized, technical solution carries risks. “This event is causing considerable alarm and even some criticism that the system is too vulnerable to a dramatic disruption,” Low said. 

 

This could be natural or climate change-driven events, but there’s also the possibility of military and cyber threats. Desalination plants in the Gulf have been targeted and damaged during the US-Iran war, raising significant alarm in a region that depends overwhelmingly on this technology. Hackers have also targeted water facilities, including in the US.

Oil spills are another big concern. “It’s not if, it’s just when an oil spill in the vicinity of desalination facilities will occur,” Ben-Zeev said. A lot of plants are in water-scarce countries that are also big oil producers, such as the Gulf states.

A spill could potentially take plants offline for a much longer time than this microalgae bloom, he added. “That to me is way more worrying.”

Australian ski resorts to close up to a month early due to global heating and El Niño

Snow at Mount Buffalo, Victoria in July. Photograph: Marni Cordell/The Guardian

by  Graham Readfearn Environment and climate correspondent

‘Challenging’ weather conditions and lack of snowfall are being blamed after a winter that broke multiple heat records

Major Australian alpine resorts are closing their ski operations up to a month early after a winter that broke multiple records for heat with limited snow falls being washed away by rain.

Predictions in June that a building El Niño could combine with global heating for a challenging ski season came to pass, with seven resorts either already closed or announcing ski lifts will stop operating this weekend.

This week the Victorian resorts of Mount Buller, Mount Hotham and Falls Creek, together with Charlotte Pass in New South Wales, all announced ski operations would end this weekend.

The Victorian resort of Mount Baw Baw, the NSW resort at Selwyn and Tasmania’s Ben Lomond have already closed. Resorts typically aim to stay open until the first weekend of October.

Video - Footage shows first snow of the year falling at Perisher ski resort in New South Wales

 

Data from the Bureau of Meteorology show Falls Creek and Mount Hotham had their wettest winters in more than 30 years but, together with Mount Buller, they also had their warmest winters on record for average maximum and minimum temperatures.

Watkins said data from weather observations at Cabramurra in Kosciuszko national park suggested alpine winters had warmed by about 2C since the 1960s.

He said that temperature rise would have been the difference between precipitation falling as rain instead of snow. “It would have been a bumper season if it had been 50 years ago,” he said.

The El Niño currently in place in the Pacific Ocean can promote hotter and drier temperatures in Australia’s south-east in winter and spring.

This week the bureau forecast the current El Niño would be the strongest on record and Australian scientists said climate change had made the strength of the event six times more likely.

 

A bureau spokesperson said this winter’s heat was consistent “with a developing strong El Niño” and the season had seen long periods of high pressure in the Tasman Sea that directed warmer air from the north over alpine regions.

“But winter 2026 also experienced relatively warm nights, with cloud cover and moist soils resulting in less overnight cooling,” the spokesperson said.

“This is in contrast with historical El Niño events. This is all occurring against the background of a globally warmer climate, with daily global surface air temperatures since June close to or above the record levels in 2024.”

New South Wales, Tasmania and Victoria all recorded their hottest winters on record this year.

In July, many ski resorts broke all-time heat records for the month with temperatures during one hot spell up to 12C above average.

Climate scientists have been warning for decades that global heating will create a challenging future for Australia’s ski resorts and alpine habitats.

Josh Elliott, chief executive at the representative body Snow Resorts Australia, said there was “no question it has been a challenging season for natural snowfall”.

“This winter was shaped by a combination of abnormally warm weather and climatic variability, but it’s important to remember that in any outdoor environment, that variability can result in some seasons being better than others.

“This is an abnormal season and shouldn’t be considered in isolation as a reflection of what future seasons will look like.”

He said skiing, snowboarding and snow play had still been available in NSW, Victoria and the ACT “since the June long weekend, with all resorts across Australia operating through the July school holidays and beyond”.

“What this season has shown is the importance and value of the investment resorts have made in snow making, with underlying demand for snow holidays remaining strong through July and August.”

Why living downstream from a glacier has become a deadly liability

 

A mud-covered street in Nepal's Nuwakot district on August 26, 2026. A massive flood and landslide disaster on the Nepal-Tibet border has killed hundreds of people. Prakash Methema/AFP/Getty Images

by  By Laura Paddison

 

Living in the shadow of the world’s spectacular, ice-capped mountains has always carried dangers, but the devastating flood wave that carved a path of destruction on the Nepal-China border this week shows how life for the millions worldwide who live downstream of these peaks is becoming more unpredictable and more deadly.

It’s too soon to know what role climate change may have played in the catastrophic flooding, but what is clear is that mountains are changing fast as temperatures rise, melting glaciers and destabilizing slopes leading to complex, cascading disasters.

Nepal is a country of jagged, towering peaks with sheer slopes sweeping down to narrow valleys, cut through by powerful rivers. Its stunning landscape attracts hordes of tourists; it’s also treacherous.

Nestled in the rapidly warming Himalayas, the country has long been a hotspot for flooding and landslides. But what happened on Wednesday “was of significantly larger scale than what we have seen in the recent past,” said Prashant Baral, a cryosphere analyst at ICIMOD, a Nepali climate organization.

An enormous chunk of glacier around 2,000 feet wide sheared off Langtang Lirung mountain in northern Nepal, accompanied by landslide, according to satellite analysis. It sent a deadly mix of ice, water, rock, sediment and boulders the size of cars crashing 7,000 feet downward, causing such a powerful tremor, it was initially mistaken for an earthquake. 

 This torrent — described by some as “liquid concrete” — surged through narrow gorges, wiping out homes, buildings, power plants, bridges and roads. Hundreds have died; many hundreds more are missing. 

 

This event was remarkable in its ferocity, and it will take time to unravel the exact causes, but this kind of deadly flooding is precisely what scientists have warned would happen more frequently as humans heat the planet by burning fossil fuels.

“Whether this particular event can be tied to climate change or not, this is what we expect,” said Dan Shugar, a geologist at the University of Calgary in Canada. “This is what climate change looks like.”

The impacts will be felt well beyond Nepal.

High in the mountains, ice is king, but it’s disappearing fast. Up to half of the more than 200,000 mountain glaciers — vast, slow-moving rivers of ice that creep across the world’s peaks — are expected to disappear by the end of this century, even if ambitious climate goals are met. 

 

The rate of ice loss from glaciers across the Hindu Kush Himalaya region, which includes Nepal, have doubled since 2000, according to recent ICIMOD research.

As glaciers shrink, they can become more unstable and “sudden failures can occur,” said Ella Gilbert, a climate scientist at the British Antarctic Survey. 

Water forms under Nepal's Khumbu glacier as the ice melts. Glaciers in Hindu Kush Himalaya rare melting at increasingly rapid rates as the world warms. Alex Treadway/ICIMOD/Reuters

 

Ice also holds mountains together, in the form of permafrost, a mix of soil, rock, sediment and ice. “Think of the high mountains like this as shattered bedrock glued together by ice-filled joints,” said Richard Waller, a physical geographer at Keele University in England.

As temperatures rise, ice melts, permafrost thaws and the landscape shifts. Vast chunks of mountainside can destabilize and give way.

Glacial lakes, which form as glaciers melt, pose another hazard. They can become so full, they burst their banks, sending water and debris cascading down steep mountainsides. A glacial lake outburst was responsible for flooding in a similar area of Nepal in July last year, killing at least 11 people. 

 Then there’s rain, which is becoming more intense as the planet warms. Extreme precipitation is increasingly falling on mountains as rain not snow, increasing the risks of landslides and soil erosion. 

People walk on a suspension bridge to cross the flooded Trishuli River in Bhaise, Nuwakot, Nepal, on July 08, 2025. Ambir Tolang/NurPhoto/Getty Images

 

There are many glaciers “hanging above our heads, and anytime they can burst,” said Bishal Upreti, a geologist and president of the Nepal Centre for Disaster Management. When they do, it’s like a “tsunami from the sky,” he said.

Nepal may be particularly at risk, but this is a global problem. Any high mountain areas with glaciers and permafrost are at risk, from the European Alps to the Andes, Waller said.

In the US, the Medenhall Glacier perched above Alaska’s capital Juneau drains into the Suicide Basin lake which frequently bursts its banks, sending floodwater sweeping downstream toward the city, washing away homes.

Last year, the Swiss village of Blatten was completely buried after a glacier collapsed, sending millions of tons of ice and rock down mountainside. Scientists believe it may have been linked to thawing permafrost, causing rocks to tumble onto the glacier, destabilizing it. 

Houses submerged in water arriving on August 24, 2025 at Blatten, Switzerland. On May 28, millions of cubic meters of rock tumbled down from Kleiner Nesthorn mountain onto the Birch Glacier, sending rock, ice and mud crashing into the valley. Sean Gallup/Getty Images

 

Early warning is increasingly critical. Nepal’s warning systems likely saved many lives downstream, said Hannah Cloke, a professor of meteorology and climate change at the University of Reading in the UK. But high in the mountains “there is often very little time between the triggering event and the impact, making warnings exceptionally difficult,” she said.

One scientist estimated the Nepal-China flood wave roared down the first nearly 14 miles at a speed of 120 mph

 

It’s fiendishly difficult to know further in advance which of the country’s glaciers may be on course to collapse. Monitoring each of Nepal’s 3,000 glaciers closely would be “extremely challenging,” said ICIMOD’s Baral.

There is hope, however, in new satellite systems which could be a “game changer” for Nepal and other countries, Shugar said.

This could be a vital step as the planet’s majestic, icy mountains continue to draw people to them, putting them directly in the path of the increasingly deadly and unpredictable hazards they are likely to unleash as the world warms.

Climate crisis "could" be destabilising mountain areas like Nepal, experts warn

 

Nuwakot in Nepal. The UN’s scientific advisory body warned in 2023 that ice-bound landmasses would become more unstable. Photograph: Sanjit Pariyar/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

by  Jonathan Watts

 Unusual heat this year may have melted ice and thawed bonds that hold glaciers in place – leading to catastrophe

 

The devastating flash flood that has ripped through the border communities of Nepal and Tibet has heightened fears that the climate crisis is destabilising the geology of mountain and polar regions, threatening millions of people.

Satellite imagery suggests a glacier collapse high in the Himalayas was the primary cause of the deadly torrent of mud, water and ice that tore along the Bhotekoshi River on Wednesday. It swept away buildings and roads and left at least 360 dead and 1,400 missing.

A magnitude 4.4 earthquake was initially blamed for the collapse. However, it is now thought to have been caused by the huge wall of ice that crashed down on to the north slope of Langtang Lirung, a 7,000-metre (23,000ft) mountain, the impact of which registered a magnitude of 5.2.

“Additional analysis of long-period seismic waves indicates that the seismic energy was instead generated by a glacial collapse and debris flow,” the US Geological Survey said.

The ice-rock avalanche pushed boulders and other debris into the Lhende Khola River, a tributary of the Bhotekoshi River. Water levels in rivers downstream rose by between 7 and 9 metres within 30 minutes, according to the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, an intergovernmental scientific institution.

Scientists are still examining the precise mechanics of the Himalayan disaster, but many observe that glaciers and permafrost around the world are being weakened by global heating, caused by the burning of gas, oil and coal.

Flooding in the Bhotekoshi River has affected low-lying areas along the riverbanks and nearby homes in Nuwakot, Nepal. Photograph: Ap Tolang/Nexpher/Zuma Press Wire/Shutterstock

The detachment of a chunk of the glacier wall came amid unusual heat that was likely to have melted the ice that bound the splintered bedrock together.

Two days before the collapse, the ground temperature hit its highest point in the last two years, according to Dr Hamish Pritchard, a glaciologist with the British Antarctic Survey, whose team had sensors 6 miles (10km) away from the site.

“These high temperatures would have weakened the snowpack, filled crevasses with water and thawed the bonds between ice and rock that hold these glaciers in place,” he told the Science Media Centre.

 

A series of intense heatwaves has hit the region since early this year and affected countries around the world. Another factor here was the monsoon season, which saturated the soil and swelled rivers.

Disasters like this were foretold. In 2023 the UN’s top scientific advisory body warned that previously ice-bound landmasses – from permafrost tundra to mountain glaciers – would become increasingly unstable as temperatures rose.

 

“Every increment of warming will multiply and intensify future hazards from cryosphere regions,” observed the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its sixth synthesis report. “Floods, landslides and freshwater shortages from glacier retreat and snow loss pose a serious threat to mountain regions across the world.”

Average global temperatures are nudging closer to 1.5C above preindustrial levels. Even faster warming is occurring in alpine and polar regions because the loss of snow and ice is removing the thermal insulation of the land.

 

Dr Richard Waller, a senior lecturer in physical geography at Keele University, said: “The progressive loss of snow and glacier ice results in the surface being less reflective, so it absorbs more solar energy and heats up. In combination with atmospheric warming, this is leading to the melting of mountain permafrost.

“Think of the high mountains like this as shattered bedrock glued together by ice-filled joints. As the permafrost and the ice-filled joints melt, then there’s the potential for these types of catastrophic failure.”

The thaw is altering the shape, colour and solidity of the landscape, creating or expanding glacial meltwater lakes and, in the long term, threatening the origin of many rivers and the drinking supplies of populations downstream. In many parts of Asia, hundreds of millions of people depend on the rivers such as the Ganges and the Brahmaputra that descend from the glaciers.

Scientists have high confidence that glacier retreat is caused by human-driven global heating. This has caused glacier collapses from the Alps to the Andes. In the Langtang catchment area in Nepal, glacier loss rates have increased more than fourfold since 1964, a study has shown.

This has contributed to a loss of life on multiple occasions. A smaller flood hit the Bhotekoshi River in July 2025 and in 2015, the Langtang Lirung mountain was hit by an earthquake-induced avalanche that destroyed Langtang village.

As emergency services look for bodies and humanitarian relief groups mobilise for survivors, others are asking where next. Waller said any high mountain areas with glaciers and permafrost could be vulnerable, including the European Alps, Caucasus, Himalayas, Andes and beyond.

As glacier weakening accelerates, Pritchard called for greater disaster preparedness. “More avalanches and more floods are inevitable, particularly as lakes grow in front of the retreating glaciers,” he said. “Early warning systems are urgently needed to protect the people living in these valleys.”

Climate crisis could be destabilising mountain areas like Nepal, experts warn. Unusual heat "this year" may have melted ice and thawed bonds that hold glaciers in place – leading to catastrophe

 

Nuwakot in Nepal. The UN’s scientific advisory body warned in 2023 that ice-bound landmasses would become more unstable. Photograph: Sanjit Pariyar/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

by  Jonathan Watts

 

The devastating flash flood that has ripped through the border communities of Nepal and Tibet has heightened fears that the climate crisis is destabilising the geology of mountain and polar regions, threatening millions of people.

Satellite imagery suggests a glacier collapse high in the Himalayas was the primary cause of the deadly torrent of mud, water and ice that tore along the Bhotekoshi River on Wednesday. It swept away buildings and roads and left at least 360 dead and 1,400 missing.

A magnitude 4.4 earthquake was initially blamed for the collapse. However, it is now thought to have been caused by the huge wall of ice that crashed down on to the north slope of Langtang Lirung, a 7,000-metre (23,000ft) mountain, the impact of which registered a magnitude of 5.2.

“Additional analysis of long-period seismic waves indicates that the seismic energy was instead generated by a glacial collapse and debris flow,” the US Geological Survey said.

The ice-rock avalanche pushed boulders and other debris into the Lhende Khola River, a tributary of the Bhotekoshi River. Water levels in rivers downstream rose by between 7 and 9 metres within 30 minutes, according to the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, an intergovernmental scientific institution.

Scientists are still examining the precise mechanics of the Himalayan disaster, but many observe that glaciers and permafrost around the world are being weakened by global heating, caused by the burning of gas, oil and coal.

Flooding in the Bhotekoshi River has affected low-lying areas along the riverbanks and nearby homes in Nuwakot, Nepal. Photograph: Ap Tolang/Nexpher/Zuma Press Wire/Shutterstock

The detachment of a chunk of the glacier wall came amid unusual heat that was likely to have melted the ice that bound the splintered bedrock together.

Two days before the collapse, the ground temperature hit its highest point in the last two years, according to Dr Hamish Pritchard, a glaciologist with the British Antarctic Survey, whose team had sensors 6 miles (10km) away from the site.

“These high temperatures would have weakened the snowpack, filled crevasses with water and thawed the bonds between ice and rock that hold these glaciers in place,” he told the Science Media Centre.

A series of intense heatwaves has hit the region since early this year and affected countries around the world. Another factor here was the monsoon season, which saturated the soil and swelled rivers.

Disasters like this were foretold. In 2023 the UN’s top scientific advisory body warned that previously ice-bound landmasses – from permafrost tundra to mountain glaciers – would become increasingly unstable as temperatures rose.

“Every increment of warming will multiply and intensify future hazards from cryosphere regions,” observed the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its sixth synthesis report. “Floods, landslides and freshwater shortages from glacier retreat and snow loss pose a serious threat to mountain regions across the world.”

Average global temperatures are nudging closer to 1.5C above preindustrial levels. Even faster warming is occurring in alpine and polar regions because the loss of snow and ice is removing the thermal insulation of the land.

Dr Richard Waller, a senior lecturer in physical geography at Keele University, said: “The progressive loss of snow and glacier ice results in the surface being less reflective, so it absorbs more solar energy and heats up. In combination with atmospheric warming, this is leading to the melting of mountain permafrost.

“Think of the high mountains like this as shattered bedrock glued together by ice-filled joints. As the permafrost and the ice-filled joints melt, then there’s the potential for these types of catastrophic failure.”

A destroyed building in Devighat, Nuwakot. Photograph: Niranjan Shrestha/AP

The thaw is altering the shape, colour and solidity of the landscape, creating or expanding glacial meltwater lakes and, in the long term, threatening the origin of many rivers and the drinking supplies of populations downstream. In many parts of Asia, hundreds of millions of people depend on the rivers such as the Ganges and the Brahmaputra that descend from the glaciers.

Scientists have high confidence that glacier retreat is caused by human-driven global heating. This has caused glacier collapses from the Alps to the Andes. In the Langtang catchment area in Nepal, glacier loss rates have increased more than fourfold since 1964, a study has shown.

TImeline of how deadly Nepal and Tibet flash flood unfolded – explainer

 

This has contributed to a loss of life on multiple occasions. A smaller flood hit the Bhotekoshi River in July 2025 and in 2015, the Langtang Lirung mountain was hit by an earthquake-induced avalanche that destroyed Langtang village.

As emergency services look for bodies and humanitarian relief groups mobilise for survivors, others are asking where next. Waller said any high mountain areas with glaciers and permafrost could be vulnerable, including the European Alps, Caucasus, Himalayas, Andes and beyond.

As glacier weakening accelerates, Pritchard called for greater disaster preparedness. “More avalanches and more floods are inevitable, particularly as lakes grow in front of the retreating glaciers,” he said. “Early warning systems are urgently needed to protect the people living in these valleys.”

"Climate Change" - Nearly 1,400 missing, mostly tourists, after Nepal-Tibet flash flood kills at least 270

 

A drone view shows mud covering properties after the flash flood in Trishuli, Nepal. Photograph: Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters

 Nepal’s disaster authority said satellite data indicated a “snow-rock landslide” on the Nepal-China border may have caused the flood. Scientists say climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events in the region.

For a prediction, read this 2016 article: 

 Entire villages swept away after glacial collapse triggers flood in mountainous region popular with trekkers and pilgrims

by  Hannah Ellis-Petersen in Delhi, Sam Jones, Kate Lamb and agencies

Rescuers are searching for nearly 1,400 people, most of them tourists, who are missing after a catastrophic flash flood hit Nepal and Tibet, thundering down valleys, obliterating entire villages and killing at least 270 people.

Efforts to locate those missing – including hundreds of people from India, the US, UK, Australia and Canada – have been complicated by the destruction of dozens of bridges and almost 25 miles (40km) of roads in the mountainous region popular with trekkers and pilgrims.

Videos from Wednesday’s disaster showed a massive wall of water crashing down on the border as people tried to flee. Trucks were upended and houses, roads ⁠and power projects swept away in Nepal, while ​officials in Tibet said they feared “major casualties” after a mudslide hit a border crossing.

Deadly flash flood hit Nepal and China - cinemagraph

 

Rescue teams have found bodies hundreds of miles downstream from the disaster zone in the Chitwan district of Nepal, near the Tibetan border. Dozens of injured people have been transported to Kathmandu for advanced medical care. By Thursday morning, the Nepali army had rescued more than 100 people from flood-affected areas by helicopter.

David Fisher, the head of the Nepal delegation of the International Federation of the Red Cross, said entire villages and market areas had been wiped out.

In the affected areas, houses, trees and vehicles were submerged or buried in mudslides. Helicopters hovered overhead all day, helping to rescue survivors.

The power, volume and speed of the surging waters gave little time for anyone to flee.

People from the hard-hit areas of Nuwakot and Dhading were seen gathering outside a Nepali army training centre – the base for helicopter rescue operations – seeking information about missing family members.

Police were recording the names of the missing just outside the barracks gate. Mobile phone torches were their only source of light as the area remained without electricity due to damaged hydroelectric infrastructure.

The village of Soley, in Nuwakot, which had about 25 homes, was virtually wiped out, according to Nirajan Paudyal, a Kathmandu-based journalist whose parents and other relatives live there. Desperate for information, he travelled to the area on Thursday for news of his family.

 

“There is no update till now,” he said. “I fear there won’t be any update.”

Almost 600 foreigners were among 826 people missing in Nepal, police and tourism ⁠officials said. Among those unaccounted were 177 from India, 63 from the US, 34 from Australia, 33 from Britain and 25 from Canada.

Chinese state media said at least 558 were missing on the Tibet side of the border, of whom at least 260 were foreign nationals.

Police in Nepal said 270 ⁠bodies had been recovered by Thursday afternoon local time, while Chinese state media reported three dead on the Tibet side of the border.

Many of the victims were on a pilgrimage to Kailash Mansarovar, a high-altitude site in ‌Tibet revered by Hindus and Buddhists among others.

Early reports from Nepali ​officials suggested an earthquake could have caused the lower part of a glacier to collapse and trigger ‌the floods. But the US Geological Survey later said what was initially reported ‌as a 4.4-magnitude earthquake was a seismic shock generated by glacial rock and ice collapsing and the flow of debris. “No earthquake had occurred,” it said.

amaged section of highway in Nepal after the flash flood. Photograph: Subaas Shrestha/NurPhoto/Shutterstock
 

An initial study of Planet Labs satellite imagery indicated a landslide of ice and rock triggered the debris-laden flood in the Lhende River, about 12 miles (20km) north-east of the Nepal-China Rasuwagadhi border crossing, Nepal’s national disaster authority said. Experts say the risk of such events is compounded by the extreme topography of the Himalayas.

People shared harrowing stories of how they managed to survive. “I started running. Then a wall of water came thundering down as if it was an earthquake,” said Bibek Kumal, a labourer who was working downstream from the worst-hit Rasuwa district, near Nepal’s Himalayan border with China’s Tibet.

From his hospital bed, Kumal said the torrent swept him downstream amid mud and debris but he survived by clinging to a mango tree. “Had there been no mango tree, I would ‌have been washed away to death,” he said.

Keshav Prasad Baral, a 68-year-old survivor who was being treated at a small hospital, said: “It was a huge gush of mud coming straight towards us. As it got closer, it kept rising higher and higher.

“I tried to grab my wife’s hand and take ⁠her to the terrace. But she was swept away by the mud. Four or five hours later, a helicopter came to rescue me. My wife is still somewhere beneath the mud. She’s gone.”

 

Nepali soldiers carrying a survivor of the flash flood. Photograph: Nepal Army/EPA

 

The United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, said UN teams and partners were mobilising supplies and personnel to support communities affected by the disaster. The US government said it would provide $500,000 in emergency assistance.

Tibet government officials deployed nearly 800 emergency workers and 150 vehicles as well as sniffer dogs and speed boats to help the rescue efforts, China’s official Xinhua news agency said.

The Chinese premier, Li Qiang, travelled to the affected area on the China-Nepal border on Thursday to oversee search efforts there.

 

The tour company Himalayan Glacier said 47 people, including two children, were missing from one of its groups in Nepal. Among them were 15 Australians, 10 Canadians, nine Nepalis, eight Americans, two Britons, two Singaporeans and one Russian-American dual citizen, its managing director, Sanket Pandey, said.

The Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, said his thoughts were with those concerned about their loved ones, and that getting information about the status of missing people remained difficult.

With Reuters and Agence France-Presse

Europe is the world’s fastest warming continent. What is to blame?

Firefighters battle a wildfire in the Casaboli Forest near Palermo in Italy in July 2026. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

 

The whole world is getting hotter as carbon pollution from fossil fuel burning traps ever more heat, but Europe is heating up twice as fast as other continents. The consequences are increasingly deadly, with tens of thousands of heatwave deaths so far this summer.

---

Why is Europe most affected by global heating?

Land requires less heat than the vast and deep oceans to warm up, so all continents are warming more quickly than the seas. But Europe is particularly vulnerable for four reasons: changed weather patterns, its closeness to the Arctic, less snow and less air pollution.

As a result, Europe is now 2.5C hotter than before the mass burning of fossil fuels, almost double the global average 1.4C rise. Temperatures in Europe have risen by 0.56C a decade since the mid-1990s, compared with 0.42C in North America, 0.36C in Africa and 0.27C in South America.

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How have Europe’s weather patterns changed?

Shifts in how the atmosphere circulates over Europe have led to more frequent and more intense summer heatwaves. This includes the worst ever heatwave, in June 2026, in which a vast area of hot air was trapped under a stationary “heat dome”.

Scientists are still investigating the role of global heating in causing changes in atmospheric circulation, but a link seems increasingly likely.

 

Dr Samantha Burgess, from the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, said: “We see statistically significant changes in surface pressure patterns and other measures of circulation when we look at trends over the last 40 or more years, and on this timescale they are more likely associated with climate change than natural variability.”

The association may be the result of a changing jet stream, a fast high-level wind that has a powerful influence on Europe’s weather and is itself affected by rising temperatures.

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Why is the Arctic important?

The Arctic is the fastest warming region on the planet, despite having no land. This is because the white polar ice cap, which normally reflects the vast majority of sunlight back into space, is melting away fast. As a result, the darker ocean exposed by the melting absorbs much more heat, which then melts more ice, forming a vicious circle. With a significant proportion of Europe relatively close to the Arctic, temperatures are therefore rising faster.

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What about snow cover?

Most of Europe had snowfall in winter in the past. Like the Arctic sea ice, this snow reflected sunlight and kept the continent cooler. But the climate crisis is shrinking snow-covered areas.

In March 2025, Europe’s blanket of snow was about 1.3m square km below the 1991-2020 average, a 31% drop. That lost area is roughly the area of France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Austria combined. It was the third lowest snow cover since records began in 1983.

 

Why does reduced air pollution affect temperatures?

Air pollution kills millions of people globally every year and so Europe’s record of cutting toxic air levels in recent decades is unequivocally a good thing. However, cleaner air is also unmasking the impact of the rise in carbon dioxide pollution in the atmosphere.

Air pollution particles can reflect the sun’s rays, directly or by seeding the formation of clouds, meaning the heat does not reach the ground. Fewer particles means less reflection and more heat that is trapped by greenhouse gases. Lower pollution might even be connected to the increase in blocking weather patterns.

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How important is each of the four factors above?

The short answer is that scientists don’t yet know, but they aim to have an estimate next year.

Burgess said: “What we can say is that the importance of each factor must vary with season, with proximity to the Arctic important in autumn and winter, and circulation changes since the late 1970s of greater statistical significance in summer.”

The drop in air pollution is most marked in winter because of declining coal heating in homes, and snow cover is a winter issue. Winter warming in Europe in recent decades has been strongest in the north, while summer warming has been strongest in the south-east.

 

What are the consequences?

The rapid heating is leading to ever more deaths and more intense wildfires and droughts. Storms, intense rainfall and floods are also being supercharged by the extra heat in the climate system. All deeply affect lives and livelihoods across the continent and will continue to worsen until emissions reach net zero. Rapid cuts in CO₂ pollution and the rollout of measures to protect citizens are urgently needed.

The UN climate chief, Simon Stiell, said in late July: “The awful costs of this climate crisis – both human and economic – are now reaching national emergency levels. What needs to be done is clear: leave coal, oil and gas behind faster, scale up renewables, and protect people.”