NEPAL’S deadly glacier-triggered flood in the Himalaya-Karakoram-Hindukush (HKH) region is not a freak disaster. It is a warning that climate change is turning the region’s water tower into a source of systemic economic and security risk. The devastating flood triggered by a glacier collapse that struck the Himalayan region on Aug 26, 2026, severely impacted border areas in Nepal and China (Tibet region) resulting in massive casualties. This is more than a Nepalese tragedy. It is a warning to every government in South Asia.

For decades, the Hindu Kush-Himalaya has experienced glacial lake outburst floods, or Glofs. The 1985 Dig Tsho outburst in Nepal, the Bhutan catastrophe of Lugge Tsho flood in 1994 and the 2013 Kedarnath disaster in India demonstrate again how rapidly water, sediment and unstable mountain terrain can turn into mass death. But the danger is changing. A new ICIMOD report confirms that HKH glaciers are losing ice at double the rate since 2000.

For too long, however, South Asia has treated the mountains as scenery rather than infrastructure. That is a dangerous mistake. The HKH is often called the world’s Third Pole because it contains the largest concentration of snow and ice outside the Arctic and........

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