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Peer-reviewedCC BYNatural hazards and earth system sciences

The 2024 cascading glacial lake outburst flood in the Thame Valley of Everest region, Nepal: process, impacts and implications

  • Nitesh Khadka1
  • Vishnu Prasad Pandey1,2
  • Cameron Scott Watson3
  • Guoxiong Zheng4,5
  • Tianpei Wu6,7
  • Keshab Sharma8
  • Lauren D. Rawlins3
  • Simon Allen9
  • Manish Raj Gouli10
  • Dibas Shrestha11
11 affiliations
  1. 1Center for Water Resources Studies (CWRS), Institute of Engineering, Tribhuvan University, Nepal
  2. 2Department of Civil Engineering, Pulchowk Campus, Institute of Engineering, Tribhuvan University, Nepal
  3. 3School of Geography and water@leeds, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK
  4. 4College of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China
  5. 5Midui Glacier-Guangxie Lake Disaster Field Science Observation and Research Station of Tibet Autonomous Region, Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, China
  6. 6State Key Laboratory of Mountain Hazards and Engineering Resilience, Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu, China
  7. 7University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
  8. 8BGC Engineering Inc., 330 AlisonBlvd., Fredericton, NB, Canada E3C 0A9
  9. 9Department of Geography, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
  10. 10The Stimson Center - Energy, Water, & Sustainability, 1211 Connecticut Ave, NW / 8th Floor Washington, DC 20036
  11. 11Central Department of Meteorology and Hydrology, Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, Nepal
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Abstract

On the afternoon of 16 August 2024, a catastrophic flood devastated Thame Village in the Everest region of Nepal. This event resulted from a cascading glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF), where the outburst of an upstream glacial lake triggered the failure of a downstream lake in the headwaters—a complex hazard chain often-overlooked in conventional risk assessments. By integrating multi-source satellite imagery, field data, climatic data, empirical estimations, and numerical modelling, we analyse the triggers, processes, and consequences of the cascading failure. We find that the upper lake, which formed in the late 2000s, expanded rapidly to 0.11 km² prior to its outburst, while the lower lake grew by 20 % between 1989 and 2024. The hydrological tipping point for the upper lake was driven by intense glacier melt and calving from extreme temperatures and precipitation. Its overtopping triggered a cascade, causing the breach of the lower lake’s moraine dam and releasing a combined water volume of approximately 6 (± 0.65) ×10⁵ m³. Multi-phase mass flow modelling reconstructing two possible scenarios indicates that the flood wave, with an initial peak discharge exceeding 800 m³/s, reached Thame Village within 22 to 32 minutes. The socio-economic impact was severe, with losses estimated at 6.18 million USD within the Khumbu Pasang Lhamu Rural Municipality alone, and flood effects traced over 50 km downstream. This event demonstrates that small, rapidly evolving glacial lakes, conditioned by climate-induced glacier retreat, can generate devastatingly powerful GLOFs. This underscores a critical need to broaden GLOF risk assessments to include such small lakes and to prioritize reducing exposure and vulnerability in dynamic high-mountain communities over solely engineering-based hazard control.

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Cite

BibTeXRIS
BibTeX
@article{khadka20262024,
  title = {{The 2024 cascading glacial lake outburst flood in the Thame Valley of Everest region, Nepal: process, impacts and implications}},
  author = {Nitesh Khadka and Vishnu Prasad Pandey and Cameron Scott Watson and Guoxiong Zheng and Tianpei Wu and Keshab Sharma and Lauren D. Rawlins and Simon Allen and Manish Raj Gouli and Dibas Shrestha},
  journal = {Natural hazards and earth system sciences},
  year = {2026},
  month = aug,
  doi = {10.5194/nhess-26-4131-2026},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-26-4131-2026},
  note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY  - JOUR
TI  - The 2024 cascading glacial lake outburst flood in the Thame Valley of Everest region, Nepal: process, impacts and implications
AU  - Nitesh Khadka
AU  - Vishnu Prasad Pandey
AU  - Cameron Scott Watson
AU  - Guoxiong Zheng
AU  - Tianpei Wu
AU  - Keshab Sharma
AU  - Lauren D. Rawlins
AU  - Simon Allen
AU  - Manish Raj Gouli
AU  - Dibas Shrestha
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/08/27
JO  - Natural hazards and earth system sciences
DO  - 10.5194/nhess-26-4131-2026
UR  - https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-26-4131-2026
AB  - On the afternoon of 16 August 2024, a catastrophic flood devastated Thame Village in the Everest region of Nepal. This event resulted from a cascading glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF), where the outburst of an upstream glacial lake triggered the failure of a downstream lake in the headwaters—a complex hazard chain often-overlooked in conventional risk assessments. By integrating multi-source satellite imagery, field data, climatic data, empirical estimations, and numerical modelling, we analyse the triggers, processes, and consequences of the cascading failure. We find that the upper lake, which formed in the late 2000s, expanded rapidly to 0.11 km² prior to its outburst, while the lower lake grew by 20 % between 1989 and 2024. The hydrological tipping point for the upper lake was driven by intense glacier melt and calving from extreme temperatures and precipitation. Its overtopping triggered a cascade, causing the breach of the lower lake’s moraine dam and releasing a combined water volume of approximately 6 (± 0.65) ×10⁵ m³. Multi-phase mass flow modelling reconstructing two possible scenarios indicates that the flood wave, with an initial peak discharge exceeding 800 m³/s, reached Thame Village within 22 to 32 minutes. The socio-economic impact was severe, with losses estimated at 6.18 million USD within the Khumbu Pasang Lhamu Rural Municipality alone, and flood effects traced over 50 km downstream. This event demonstrates that small, rapidly evolving glacial lakes, conditioned by climate-induced glacier retreat, can generate devastatingly powerful GLOFs. This underscores a critical need to broaden GLOF risk assessments to include such small lakes and to prioritize reducing exposure and vulnerability in dynamic high-mountain communities over solely engineering-based hazard control.
SN  - 1561-8633
SN  - 1684-9981
ER  -