Mountaineer Um Hong-gil warns of more disasters as Himalayan glaciers melt

Veteran mountaineer Um Hong-gil has attributed the massive landslides and flooding in northern Nepal to climate change and glacial melt.

Um expressed deep sorrow over the Nepal disaster in an interview with the Dong-A Ilbo on Thursday.

Um, who over 22 years became the first Korean to summit all 16 Himalayan peaks and has since built schools in remote parts of Nepal, pointed to climate change as the root cause of the disaster. "Every time I visit Nepal, I feel that human-caused global warming is compounding the dangers," he said. "An unspeakable catastrophe has struck, and I worry that such events will occur even more frequently in the future."

The Rasuwa area of northern Nepal where the disaster struck lies along a pilgrimage route to Mount Kailash, a sacred site in both Hinduism and Tibetan Buddhism. Recalling a visit to the region in late May to early June, Um said the area was packed with people at the time.

He explained that rising temperatures cause glaciers to melt, with the water pooling behind debris to form glacial lakes. When an earthquake or landslide breaches the natural dam, the floodwaters devastate communities downstream. "It all comes down to global warming," Um said. "As temperatures rise, glaciers are melting all across the Himalayan range. And when a dam — whether from an earthquake or a landslide — bursts, as it has now, it leads to an unspeakable catastrophe."

Um said disasters of this kind could strike at any time and called for the creation of an emergency oversight body to monitor and manage glacial lakes.