Summary of the News
This article begins with a recent large-scale avalanche in the uninhabited area of Mount Muztagh in Xinjiang and discusses the surge in avalanches, mudslides, and ice lake ruptures that have occurred in the Tibetan Plateau and surrounding high-altitude regions over the past 2-3 years. The root cause of all these disasters is identified as global warming: in the past 60 years, the glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau have shrunk by 24%. A large amount of ice has melted from the inside, causing the structure to collapse, and this has led to the formation of thousands of “ice lakes” surrounded by loose rocks, effectively creating thousands of time bombs hanging around the plateau. Many of these massive avalanches in uninhabited areas were not detected by satellites until two years later. If such disasters occur in populated areas, they can cause significant casualties. These consecutive incidents are a cruel reminder of the reality of the abstract concept of “global warming.”
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Plain Language Explanation
1. The recent series of incidents on the plateau are not random or isolated events
Many people might think that the avalanche at Mount Muztagh was a rare accident, but in fact, there have been several dangerous incidents in high-altitude areas in the past half-month: less than two weeks before the avalanche at Muztagh, a massive mudslide destroyed roads and buildings at the Gyirong Pass; in July this year, an avalanche on an 8,000-meter peak in the Karakoram Mountains of Pakistan killed all 10 members of a professional climbing team that had previously summited all 14 8,000-meter peaks within half a year.
Looking back at the past decade, the records are even more alarming: in 2016, an avalanche in Tibet’s Ali region swept away 9 herders; in 2018, an avalanche blocked the Yarlung Zangbo River, forming a dammed lake; in 2023, an avalanche in Milin buried 13 people; in 2024, a mudslide in Kangding destroyed a bridge, cutting off transportation; and in 2025, a landslide in Qinghai nearly buried an entire village. Essentially, there is a pattern of major glacier-related disasters occurring almost every year.
2. Healthy glaciers are suddenly “shattering into rubble” because it’s too hot
What were the glaciers on the plateau like before? They were like large, frozen ice blocks that were tightly frozen to the mountain surface, so they wouldn’t even move on their own, let alone collapse due to an earthquake.
However, in recent decades, temperatures have been rising year after year, which is like putting these ice blocks in a “warmer refrigerator” and slowly melting them. The melting doesn’t just happen on the surface; it starts from the internal cracks, turning the ice into a brittle substance that can easily break under pressure and slide down the mountain, causing avalanches. In the past 60 years, the Tibetan Plateau has lost 7,000 small glaciers, and the remaining large glaciers have split into several pieces, almost collapsing the entire “ice framework” of the plateau.
3. Avalanches are just the beginning; the subsequent chain of disasters are the real “invisible bombs”
The problems caused by glacier melting are far more serious than just the loss of ice. Previously, glaciers acted like giant bulldozers, moving debris and sediment in the valleys. Now that the glaciers have melted, this loose debris blocks the valley entrances, trapping the water they release, forming ice lakes.
There are now 14,000 such ice lakes on the entire Tibetan Plateau, with more than 100 in the Himalayas alone. The “dams” of these lakes are not made of solid stone or concrete but of loose rocks. Even a minor earthquake or high temperatures in summer can cause the dams to collapse, sending billions of cubic meters of water and debris down the valleys as powerful mudslides. Many disasters, such as the one that destroyed the China-Nepal Friendship Bridge and downstream hydroelectric stations, were caused by the rupture of these ice lakes, posing a constant threat to people living downstream.
4. Just because we can’t see most glacier disasters doesn’t mean they don’t happen
The Tibetan Plateau covers more than 2.5 million square kilometers, and over 90% of it is uninhabited. Many massive avalanches go unnoticed for years. For example, in 2022, a huge avalanche in the depths of Hoh Xil region resulted in the collapse of 40 million cubic meters of ice—four times the amount of debris from the Gyirong mudslide. Since no one lives there, it wasn’t discovered until two years later when Norwegian scientists analyzed satellite images.
The glacier disasters we see with casualties are just those that happened in populated areas. The number of unreported and undiscovered avalanches and landslides is likely several times higher; it’s just that they haven’t yet affected anyone.
5. Don’t think glacier melting doesn’t affect us; its impacts are already here
Many people think that global warming and glacier melting are issues far away, unrelated to their daily lives. However, the Tibetan Plateau is the “water tower of Asia,” providing water for China’s Yangtze River, Yellow River, Yarlung Zangbo River, and several major rivers in Southeast and South Asia.
As glaciers melt faster, river flows may increase in the short term, which could be beneficial for power generation and irrigation. But in 20-30 years, when the glaciers are completely gone, the sources of these rivers will no longer have a stable supply of water, affecting millions of people’s drinking, farming, and power generation. In the past half-century, glaciers have melted by 9.58 trillion tons, causing the global sea level to rise by 26 millimeters, and coastal cities and farmland are being eroded by seawater. The climbers and herders who died in these avalanches are not just distant victims; they represent the first tangible consequences of global warming. The mountains may not speak, but they have already sent out warnings through their repeated collapses.