Ice Broke From a Glacier, and Disaster Followed Below

Raging flash floodwaters roared through a Himalayan valley on Wednesday, wiping out villages, roads, and hydropower projects along the Nepal-Tibet border and leaving hundreds unaccounted for, many of them tourists. Nepali officials say at least 55 people are dead, with 384 tourists from countries such as India, the US, the UK, and Malaysia missing.

Early analysis suggests the flooding was triggered when a 4.4-magnitude quake struck the area, causing a significant chunk of ice to break free from a high-altitude glacier and fall to Nepal's Bhotekoshi River thousands of feet below, "releasing vast amounts of energy that pulverized the ice into a significant volume of flood water," per the New York Times. Reuters reports the quake hit approximately seven minutes before the timestamp on surveillance video showing people trying to flee seconds before a mudslide hit a border crossing.