r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/MrOrangeMagic • Aug 26 '26
Video Flash Floods hit Nepalese-Chinese border region, hundreds missing including 384 foreign nationals NSFW
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u/Moule14 Aug 26 '26
I don't think I've ever seen a more scary thing on Reddit or probably anywhere else.
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u/snow_garbanzo Aug 26 '26
Probably hundreds swallowed by the earth, this is indeed one of the most terrifying footage I have ever seen.
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u/Alternative-Mood5824 Aug 26 '26
True, death en mass in camera
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u/nthensome Interested Aug 26 '26
Did a dam burst or something like that?
I had no idea a flood could be that massive
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u/wylee_one Aug 26 '26
earth quake colllapsed a glacier lake causing not a flood or a flash flood but a true mega tsunami
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u/Teknekratos Aug 26 '26
As per the latest news, it's the reverse. The glacier collapse and subsequent flood was so massive it got registered as a quake.
https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/26/weather/floods-nepal-cause-vis
USGS later clarified that the shaking was not an earthquake, but was rather caused by this exceptionally powerful landslide itself, which registered as the equivalent of a magnitude 5.2 earthquake.
In other words, an earthquake did not cause the glacier-landslide event. The landslide caused an earthquake.
The mind boggles.
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u/RADICCHI0 Aug 26 '26
That first clip looked like what would happen if a big comet hit.
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u/TheFluidRock Aug 26 '26
That was the image it conjurned in my eye. It looks like a mountain of water smashed into the earth.
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u/Admirable_Average_32 Aug 26 '26
Literally looked like a mountain. Not water, just earth. Sad and scary.
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u/dropamusic Aug 26 '26
about 13000 yrs ago the Missoula floods eastern Washington used to do this every few 100 years. It would cause a massive torrent of water breaking from Ice damns that would flood all the way into Willamette valley in Oregon. Missoula floods - Wikipedia
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u/stubobarker Aug 26 '26
The original break created the Columbia River gorge in a matter of hours. What was originally thought to be millions of years of erosion was determined to be a massive ~mile high flash flood when erratics were found (rocks that have no local equivalent).
If you visit the potholes area you can see where the water “tornados” cored circular holes into the basalt- in some cases many meters across and feet deep.
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u/UnderCoverSquid Aug 26 '26
Having flown over that area a few times, it is obvious once you see it. It's hard to imagine that this discovery was as recent as it was, in retrospect.
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u/TactlessTortoise Aug 27 '26
Might be one of those cases where they had suspicions, but it's such an insane geological event they wanted plenty of evidence before making it the most likely thing. 1500 meters of pure water height is fucking monstrous. Comparable to some parts of the ocean in depth.
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u/mAInager Aug 26 '26
My farm is in that area 🥲 thank you for this further knowledge - my papa told me some of this
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u/i_was_axiom Aug 26 '26
The scale of it was truly mind-boggling. I'm sort of desensitized by Reddit to this sort of natural disaster tragedy footage, not to say it isn't tragic, but the totality of destruction here really set me back in my seat like this stuff would have before Reddit.
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u/davekva Aug 26 '26
It's hard to comprehend the scale of what's happening in these videos. It doesn't seem like something that could actually happen. It looks like the shit you see in a movie where the world is ending.
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u/throwawaysmetoo Aug 27 '26
It looks like the shit you see in a movie where the world is ending.
In the 'carpark' video there's people running down the back of the building, the water comes through the building and then it looks like the next group of people stops - and then almost immediately the window beside them explodes with water.
That is damn haunting.
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u/DrakeBurroughs Aug 26 '26
I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything this awful on this scale.
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u/TactlessTortoise Aug 27 '26
The scale of hopelessness for the people who seemed so small before all that mass truly cuts deep. Any attempts to empathise just make it feel worse because it really doesn't seem like the people running could've done anything different to influence their odds of survival. Poor sods just got washed away after being in the wrong place, in the wrong time, and I hope it at least was quick to do its thing, because I doubt any single person we saw here is going to be dug out in less than a month, and live burial is a rough fucking way to go even without the maiming of a mountain falling above the person. Better to just be crushed head-first by a 5 ton boulder with a grudge in a moment and figure out firsthand if there's an afterlife, without all the misery of being stirred into whole grain debris dough. Shitty silver lining is that there's so much fucking energy in that landslide that only people closer to the edges will have a chance to have survived the immediate impact, and they're the ones with a chance to be rescued.
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Aug 26 '26
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u/AnOnlineHandle Aug 26 '26
In the second video it looks like somebody turns around for their two kids to catch up maybe and realizes that's right behind them and freezes up. Just awful.
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u/RunBrundleson Aug 26 '26
There’s literally nothing you can do. You’re not outrunning that, that one car didn’t even look like it could clear it.
Never seen anything like it
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u/ODB_Dirt_Dog_ItsFTC Aug 26 '26
Even if you somehow miraculously didn’t get immediately obliterated by the sheer force of the water it’s so full of gravel and debris it’ll shred them to pieces.
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u/HeliosRunner Aug 26 '26
in total couple thousands could have died all along the river bed. maybe even more...
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u/Nicombobula Aug 26 '26
Flood doesn’t even feel like a proper word here. This is utter and complete devastation. Every single person in frame is more than likely dead and never stood a chance.
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u/The-Young-Lion Aug 26 '26
This is what was scary to me. Sometimes you see these videos and you think “well maybe they could have survived if they had _____.” But in this video - no chance. Absolutely nothing to be done. From calm one second to inevitable death the next.
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u/ryanvango Aug 26 '26
I was watching them run in the last one, knowing the water was coming from the left.
I did exactly what you said "I bet if they just get in the window of that parking garage thing and scooch up to where its more stable they would buy themselves a little extra time." And then the water came and immediately blew the entire structure away. Jaw dropping power. terrifying. At least it'd be fast.
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u/WileyWilly1985 Aug 26 '26
yeah, by the time the warning comes, you've got about 8 seconds to get about 100m up in elevation up the hillside...
This is one of my worst fears, to see death coming and there is not one damn thing you can do about it.
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u/KudosOfTheFroond Aug 26 '26
I have dreams often of experiencing being on the ground as a mile wide meteor comes slamming into the earth, having the feeling of the wall of death hurtling towards you with no escape
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u/Th3_0range Aug 26 '26
It reminds me of the dude in independence day who is on the phone and looks up at the wall of fire coming toward him throwing cars every which way and he just kind of sighs and says "oh shit...."
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u/AnOnlineHandle Aug 26 '26
I'm unsure if they ever knew what was coming. Presumably they heard some terrible noise approaching?
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u/Lone-Frequency Aug 26 '26
Truly horrifying seeing how easily all of these buildings and all this concrete get swept away like nothing. Not even an illusion of possible safety.
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u/Slighted_Inevitable Aug 26 '26
The tree line there was the only chance they had in the second video but yeah…. No chance
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u/ubermence Aug 26 '26
Yeah, it’s like I don’t know if even being in those buildings would have saved you. That’s terrifying
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u/alecwa Aug 26 '26
It appears to me that the building got simultaneously torn apart and consumed. I think we can only hope it was over quickly for them. 😪
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u/Lone-Frequency Aug 26 '26
The second perspective with all the buses, you see one guy running down the sidewalk near the supporting wall of the bridge before the camera starts stuttering frames...and next frame the wall has collapsed forward and the buses all being pushed over it.
I only hope his death was quick enough that he didn't even realize it...
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u/SpecterGT260 Interested Aug 26 '26
Yeah when I hear flash floods I assume it's coming from heavy rains. Did a dam break or something? This seems like way too much all at once for it to be just a weather related event
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u/SucculentVariations Aug 26 '26
I wonder if its glacier related, Juneau AK has a basin that fills and floods with glacial water yearly now, if there was a basin that doesnt normal overflow but an earthquake breaks it and lets all that water loose, it can be devastating
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u/throwaway1233456799 Aug 27 '26
From the news coming around it wasn't a earthquake. The glacier are just becoming weaker and weaker with climate change and well: what was bound to happen happened :(
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u/Fair_Title2995 Aug 26 '26
I'm not sure but people are saying it was caused by a landslide triggered by an earthquake
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u/codebygloom Aug 26 '26
I don't think there is a proper word to describe this. Land tsunami is about the closest thing that I can think of. This isn't something caused by rain; it's more like a very wet landslide.
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u/coryhill66 Aug 26 '26
I'm thinking back to the tsunami in Indonesia or Japan. This is just incredible.
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u/dp79 Aug 26 '26
This looks much more destructive than anything I’ve seen with the 2004 tsunami
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u/coryhill66 Aug 26 '26
I think because it's so localized. All that water got channeled into a very narrow Valley and everything just got wiped out. There are pictures coming out of entire Villages completely erased.
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u/Sufficient-Cap-1548 Aug 26 '26
Around 225,000 people died in that Tsunami. It was massively destructive. This is clearly devastating to an area but not as widespread as the Christmas Tsunami.
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u/Elmer-Fudd-Gantry Aug 26 '26
That Tsunami was the most horrible deadly event I could’ve imagined. Just mind boggling
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u/Kqyxzoj Aug 26 '26
Same. That was such a vast volume of water, really nothing is going to stand against that. Worst natural distasters always tend to involve unplanned amounts of water.
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u/DaisyHotCakes Aug 26 '26
The Indonesian tsunami of 2004 was so deadly because there wasn’t any kind of monitoring nor warning system set up in the Indian Ocean to detect tsunamis. The people on those beaches never stood a chance.
The Japanese tsunami of 2011 was probably the best documented by people who were there. The footage is devastating. Entire port cities wiped out and washed out to sea. You could hear the squelching of metal on metal and the popping of glass shattering as entire buildings were lifted off their foundations and smashed to bits then washed out to see in a reverse deluge. Shit was insane. They at least had some warning. Many people got to safety but some weren’t as fast and you watched them get swallowed by the huge swell of water.
It doesn’t look like these people had much warning either. I wouldn’t be surprised if the death toll climbed significantly because that wave that went OVER the building was so unexpectedly ferocious and fast.
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u/choff22 Aug 26 '26
This is top 3 with the Beirut explosion, and the Joplin tornado (personal reasons, I’m from there).
Absolutely insane footage.
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u/Statboy1 Aug 26 '26
The Joplin tornado was the first time I saw the debris field visible on Radar. I was living in Bolivar at the time and debris from that tornado was found in Bolivar. I had toured the hospital in Joplin a year before. They were proud about how well built it was, that the windows were rated to an EF-3.
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u/choff22 Aug 26 '26
It was an evil storm. It had everything going for it and went right for the heart of the city. Only positive is that it didn’t hit during a weekday, if it had happened a day later it would’ve been during rush hour.
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u/Low_Bluebird8238 Aug 26 '26
I occasionally rewatch the live broadcast from the news station there. The moment they realized it was a massive tornado and the broadcast freezing for a few seconds feels like something from a horror movie.
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u/contextsdontmatter Aug 26 '26
It's like seeing Pompeii eruption captured on camera.
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u/Longshadowman Aug 26 '26
My thought exactly , but I would say Herculanum instead, Pompeii was buried under ash.
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u/LollisGunsBikesTits Aug 26 '26
Dude, looks like a scene from one of those early 2010 "the world is going to end" movies
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u/inthemode01 Aug 26 '26
Thought the same thing.
Like something out of the movie “the day after tomorrow” in 2004.
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u/poofycade Aug 26 '26
No it’s like 2012 lol
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u/generalisofficial Aug 26 '26
It literally is 2012, the movie has everyone fleeing from a massive flood with ark ships in Tibet
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u/poofycade Aug 26 '26
Yeah the day after tomorrow is like the frozen version of it
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u/GH057_807 Aug 26 '26
For real. It even has that "dumping a bucket of water on a model city" practical effects vibe to it.
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u/toadjones79 Aug 26 '26
The thing that is different here: do you see the air blast ahead of it? In that first clip, look at the windows on the lower left of the building in the background. They blow out ahead of the wave.
I grew up in Yellowstone and there was an earthquake in 69 that tilted an entire valley a couple of degrees. The reservoir in that valley tipped up away from the dam, which caused the whole lake to run away and then crashed back all at once. Somehow the dam held despite this happening seven times. But the water that spilled over in the first wave was funneled down a narrow canyon (Madison) that was filled with fall campers. There is a story of one guy being blown off his feet while his wife caught a tree and was held sideways like a flag for a second. Iirc their camp was above the flood.
Down river from that the canyon wall collapsed and filled in the canyon creating a new lake (quake lake). There is one boulder that's the size of a house that witnesses watched slide (without rolling) all the way from the top of the canyon on one side about half way up the other. There are 16 people under that boulder (obviously they were hit and...)
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Aug 26 '26
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u/abastage Aug 26 '26
What the actual fuck... How the fuck does something like this happen?
It is suspected that an earthquake struck the region and triggered an ice-rock avalanche on the Lhende Khola river in Nepal, causing the floods.
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u/_HGCenty Aug 26 '26
Just to give people context of the geography here.
The location of this border crossing is a river confluence at:
28.279672, 85.377744
The main river here is the Trishuli who flows from the north west at this confluence. The tributary flowing from the north east is the Lende Khola.
There seems to have been a glacial ice avalanche upstream in the Lende Khola caused by a minor 4.4 earthquake. The effect is similar to a dam breaking as a wall of ice and snow suddenly gets released and surges down the river.
Everything you're seeing today is the wall of water flowing down the Lende Khola and Trishuli.
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u/dallenbaldwin Aug 26 '26
I lived in Arizona in the southwest US and am familiar with the more desert brand of Flash Flood. They can get bad, but I'd never even considered the fact that this kind of geologic process is also technically a flash flood.
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u/AugustOfChaos Aug 26 '26
Correction on that: According to USGS, it was not an earthquake at all, but a very large landslide. Large enough landslides can create seismic waves akin to an earthquake.
Per USGS: “This event was initially reported as a magnitude 4.4 earthquake. Additional analysis of long period seismic waves indicate that the seismic energy was instead generated by a landslide. The location of this event was estimated from satellite images.”
Link to the event: https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us7000tbwb/executive
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u/Old_Minimum_2240 Aug 26 '26
This is a kind of terror I’ve never experienced before. It has nothing to do with horror on a human scale, it’s the kind of thing that makes you fully realize how insignificant you are.
The scene at 0:51 is particularly terrifying, with the water rushing through the window and trapping those poor people. Imagining myself in that person’s place sends chills down my spine.
May the lost souls find rest, and may the victims’ families find peace.
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u/WileyWilly1985 Aug 26 '26
yeah, the worst thing to me about all this is being in the hotel or being in a car and surviving the initial flood only to be trapped underneath a few thousand tons of mud and rock knowing there is no way rescuers will get to you in time.
THere were definitely a few pockets of air within the hotel that probably lasted around 10 to 20 hours but there is no way rescuers are ever getting to you in a disaster of that scale. It would take days if not weeks for them to dig through that level of debris and Earth...
Horrible way to go
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u/AnOnlineHandle Aug 26 '26
This only happened a few hours ago so there might still be people there that can be reached. Unfortunately not likely though. :(
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u/WileyWilly1985 Aug 26 '26
OMG, I thought the video was a few years old.
If emergency crews immediately descend on the scene, they can save some lives.
I wish EMS and first responders godspeed.
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u/nolongermakingtime Aug 26 '26
Yeah man this was a hard thing to watch. I thought i was desensitized to this stuff but this really disturbed me. I hope that it was over quickly for these people, i think most of them must've died almost immediately.
My biggest fear other than losing my mind is being trapped alive, i shouldn't have watched this.
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u/StrongEggplant8120 Aug 26 '26
If its real thats probably not a flash flood and is much more likely a dams walls breaking. Definitely not rain that caused it unless somehow that rain was pooled. Its wah too much and way toompowerful
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u/ProfilerXx Aug 26 '26 edited Aug 26 '26
A glacial lake collapsed causing a flashflood from what I've heared
Edit:
Apparently there has been an earthquake causing a glacial lake to collapse causing a landslide that blocked off a river causing a flashflood
Domino effect
People literally experienced an apocalyptic event
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u/FlyingSquirelOi Aug 26 '26
Saw there was a landslide or something like that had dammed up the lake and with no way for the water to escape, it built up until it collapsed
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u/WeNotAmBeIs Aug 26 '26
I'm a geologist and one of the last things we studied was the glacial lake that used to be where Missoula Montana is. The ice dam holding it back failed and there was a wave a water that contained half the volume of Lake Michigan which annihilated everything in its path on the way to the Pacific Ocean. You can still see the scars on the land from up in the air. Any humans who were in the area probably thought it was the end of the world.
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u/throw20190820202020 Aug 26 '26 edited 18d ago
Reddit has long been a hot spot for conversation on the internet.
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u/lilB0bbyTables Aug 26 '26
You just described one of the ways gods and religions are created.
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u/Neoragex13 Aug 26 '26
Back when I was a child, something similar happened where I lived. Extremely strong rains happened that destroyed crops and flood small areas. That made it so a near river overflowed and made even worse floods in the vicinity areas and towns similarly to the video, one of which I lived in, killing dozens and disappearing hundreds more.
And then because the incidents, there was too much strain in the fuel and gas pipes running near the towns, which caused them to burst over which ended up contaminating even more the earth, released a lot of toxic waste in the air and caused fires everywhere. Worse is, some of these pipes ran under the towns and cities so there was a good chance that real good chance for everyone to blow over. There were so many fires everywhere that even the night sky was illuminated due the reflection of the light in the water.
All that happened in 24 hours. Only reason why a lot of people saved themselves was because a handful of heroes sacrificed themselves staying behind in the origins of the disasters, continuously sending reports of the situation and helping coordinate evacuations by relaying information.
The aftermath was like being on set for a recording of the Dawn of Dead, you could only watch bloody, mangled bodies being taken out of the mud and zombies-like people walking over from downtown, returning after being taken away by the waters.
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u/TL-PuLSe Aug 26 '26
Would explain the raw power of it. Glacial lake collapses caused the Missoula floods that shaped the PNW.
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Aug 26 '26 edited Aug 26 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/KIDNEYST0NEZ Aug 26 '26
Imagine having a long unexpected drought, then one day it’s just completely reversed all at once.
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u/skoz2008 Aug 26 '26
That's possible. There's a geologist on Facebook I follow. She just showed one In Alaska that let loose. 16,000,000,000,000 in something like 24 hours
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u/Fairuse Aug 26 '26
Happens all the time in canyons and mountains. Basically water upstream gets channeled into narrow sections.
When I use to backpack in canyons, I would have to check the weather within 100 mile radius. Even a small rain 100 mile upstream can result in a 10ft wall of water that would blow me away.
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u/Discombombulatedfart Aug 26 '26
People die in slot canyons from rain every year. A family died in a slot canyon earlier this year during a storm in Utah.
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u/Remote_Section2313 Aug 26 '26
Not on this scale. The wall of water goes over a 7 story building in that first part. That is not a flash flood in a canyon by rain. An earthquake triggered an avalanche that fell into this river (see below). This is not something that could have been prevented by those people watching out for flash floods, like you do when you go for a walk...
"The flood hit early on Wednesday in Rasuwa, just north of Nepal's capital Kathmandu, with preliminary information suggesting it was caused by an earthquake triggering an avalanche with melted snow pouring into the Bhote Koshi river." (https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2zyerv2lmo)
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u/eagerrangerdanger Aug 26 '26 edited Aug 26 '26
Investigators are looking particularly at an ice-rock avalanche/landslide entering or damming the river and producing a catastrophic release.
But it was most likely a glacial lake release.
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u/ProfilerXx Aug 26 '26
Earthquake that caused a landslide that blocked and rerouted a river causing a flashflood
Talk about domino effect
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u/neonninja304 Aug 26 '26
Yea it was a glacial melt flow that dammed up.
This happened a lot after the ice age. Picture that but 10x as big and caused extinction level damage to lower elevation areas for thousands of miles.
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u/ManiMaiz Aug 26 '26
I think part of why it is so jarring is I was just expecting water
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u/lectermd0 Aug 26 '26
bro, I came here with the same first words in my mouth. What the actual fuck is this event? This seems more like someone threw a huge buckle of water in an animated maquette or smt like that. It's sooooo out of scale for us!
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u/whatsagoinon1 Aug 26 '26
Wtf happened? Where did all that water suddenly come from?
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u/WRX_STD Aug 26 '26
an earthquake that caused a rock-ice avalanche, blocking the Lhende River and sending a sudden, catastrophic surge of water downstream
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u/Mnm0602 Aug 26 '26
Nature occasionally reminds us how insignificant we are, so sad for those people. Most in that video didn’t survive I’m sure.
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u/Desperate_Box1875 Aug 26 '26
Most?!!
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u/Internal_Concert_217 Aug 26 '26
I don't think even one person is alive from those scenes. Such a devastating thing to happen.
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u/CycloneIce31 Aug 27 '26
It was actually most likely the glacier falls which triggered this. The seismic activity they recorded was the massive glacier falling 4,000 feet.
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u/awkgem Aug 26 '26
Jesus. I thought a dam or levy must have broken because that was an enormous wall of water. Utter tragedy. It might sound insensitive but seeing them run made them look like ants trying to outrun a stream. A reminder of how fragile we are in the grand scheme of things.
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u/Remote_Section2313 Aug 26 '26
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2zyerv2lmo
https://english.nepalnews.com/s/climate/avalanche-induced-dam-burst-suspected-behind-devastating-rasuwa-floods/An earthquake triggered an avalanche that dropped ice into a river (bbc) and that made a dam collapse (nepalnews). We will have to wait to be 100% sure.
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u/AugustOfChaos Aug 26 '26
An earthquake actually did not occur. The landslide was so large it produced seismic waves akin to an earthquake.
Per USGS: “This event was initially reported as a magnitude 4.4 earthquake. Additional analysis of long period seismic waves indicate that the seismic energy was instead generated by a landslide.”
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u/walker_in_the_rain Aug 26 '26 edited Aug 26 '26
There's always a sense that "If I'd been there I might have got lucky and survived". No chance - not one of those people is still alive.
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u/RevTurk Aug 26 '26
Yeah, at first I thought, "why don't they go in the buildings and get to higher floors?". But then the water hits and it looks like none of those buildings survived. It's shocking, no hope for any of those people.
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u/TravincalPlumber Aug 26 '26 edited Aug 26 '26
its easy to misunderstood how strong a flow of water is. a flow of water half the high of a car could easily washed the car away, the water in this recording is easily 5+ floor high not to mention the momentum that it carries.
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u/Prot3 Aug 26 '26
Plus it's more like a mudslide than just pure water, which means more mass thus more force thus greater destructive power.
It's casually collapsing 5 story concrete buildings.
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u/DangKilla Aug 26 '26
The tsunami that hit Japan around 12 years ago taught me this lesson. The water is just filled with debris and this looks extremely devastating. It’s horrific.
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u/IanT86 Aug 26 '26
Look at how far those coaches move in seconds. It's unimaginable how powerful the water is
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u/cmsj Aug 26 '26
Always always always remember that one cubic metre of water weighs one ton.
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u/Open__Face Aug 26 '26
The kinetic force of a heavy thing moving is so outside our normal everyday life we can't really comprehend it
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u/Gloomy-Ad-222 Aug 26 '26
I used to surf out at Ocean Beach in San Francisco for many years. On a good sized day, the waves break with such ferocity you just try to hold onto your board and survive. The ocean has incredible power. I got held down a long time one day, swallowed some water, and started to feel scared beyond “this is supposed to be fun” and that was basically it for me at that place.
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u/Weak_Feed_8291 Aug 26 '26
I was thinking if someone jumped in the back of the dump truck they may be protected from debris at least even though the water may still reach them, then the dump truck became debris
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u/EliselD Aug 26 '26
I think this is what so scary about this. There is not a single way I can think of that I could do to survive in that situation. I can only feel grateful not to find myself there... I really feel bad for those people.
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u/kcmayn Aug 26 '26
Watching that footage I don’t think there is a survivable option, at all. Very sad to see people go through that.
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u/Unusual_Tie_2404 Aug 26 '26
The sad part is there are definitely hundreds
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u/walker_in_the_rain Aug 26 '26
Yeah the BBC is already quoting over 200 but looking at this I think you can realistically 10x that.
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u/Quirky-Skin Aug 26 '26
In the beginning I was looking at that wooden platform on the roof thinking "looks like that's the only safe space.....oh wow"
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u/CricketJamSession Aug 26 '26
While generally true
You won't believe what people had managed to survive
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u/afraidofrs Aug 26 '26
I was not prepared for that sheer amount of water and force. Holy shit.
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u/Cowilson42 Aug 26 '26
It’s not just water either. It’s mud and boulders and whole trees and after it hits the city it carries cars can smash chunks of concrete and carry them away as well. It’s called a debris flow and it’s basically a flood that carries a bunch of shit with it. I’m guessing that’s what it is because of the color of the water and the dirt/ dust you can see in the air.
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u/alecwa Aug 26 '26
The first time I saw a real one was in the videos of the Japan tsunami. It was terrifying seeing it carry cars, houses, lorries, the lot, along with it.
This was even more violent though. ☹️
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u/SiriHowDoIAdult Aug 26 '26
There's nowhere safe to even go. Like I was thinking go in a building or up the hill but both got wiped in an instant. Terrifying. RIP
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u/hillswalker87 Aug 26 '26
up the hill was the only chance. if anyone made a B-line for it and got high enough they might have made it. but given how many people are seen running, it doesn't look like they had enough time.
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u/WhattaCheapPop Aug 26 '26
I was expecting some waist high waters or something to come rushing down the street. Instead the entire frame gets fucking obliterated. Insane.
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u/geb_bce Aug 26 '26
That's one of the most terrifying videos Ive ever seen.
Reminds me of the tsunami videos in Japan.
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u/talann Aug 26 '26
For the japan one, it was wild seeing all those building uprooted. It was intriguing to watch.
This one though....this is insane. That is a fucking wall of water far bigger than i could have ever expected.
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u/Leviathon6348 Aug 26 '26
“Oh I hope they got to the top of that building to get out of the water……oh…OH MY GOD.”
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u/Aware-Code7244 Aug 26 '26
Background information from 12 August 2026
https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-4065/egusphere-2026-4065.pdf
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u/ahundreddots Aug 26 '26
So we know that this originated in the Purepu glacier system? That's like 25km away as the crow flies. If that's the source, that's a massive trail of destruction.
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u/Azatis- Aug 26 '26
This is fucking scary, like the end of the world like catastrophy where you have no hope for survival
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u/Papa_Raj Aug 26 '26
Once every so many years you see something on here you'll never forget. This is one of those posts. Holy shit.
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u/DistractedByCookies Aug 26 '26
There is not a single thing any of those people in the video could have done to save themselves. Not run away, not run to a building...everything was just ...gone. That is some apocalypic shit right there.
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u/Druu- Aug 26 '26
From NPR this morning:
Climate experts at the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development say an avalanche from a glacier likely caused Wednesday's flash flood.
The Lhende Khola River, a tributary of the Bhotekoshi River, witnessed maximum flooding Wednesday, they said.
"The Lhende Khola has flooded twice in fourteen months, this time triggered by an ice rock avalanche from a glacier on the Nepal side that blocked the river and released a sudden surge downstream," said Saswata Sanyal, a disaster risk reduction specialist at the climate research group.
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u/Dracko705 Aug 26 '26
This is some of the more horrific footage to see/imagine happening - legit looks like footage from an apocalyptic natural disaster movie
Unbelievably that many people were caught out by it, didn't even stand a chance/come close with how quick that flood was moving. Horrible RIP
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u/surrealbfx Aug 26 '26
Reminder that we all are just puppets at the mercy of nature. RIP and hope not many lost their lives.
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u/Chim_Pansy Aug 26 '26
Literally everyone you see here lost their lives without a doubt, plus the title says at least 384 foreign nationals. This is a fucking carastrophe.
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u/Repulsive-Extreme-57 Aug 26 '26
So this is a GLOF - glacial lake outburst flood. These occur when the natural dam and lake caused by retreating glaciers suddenly burst due to earthquakes or rain. Many of these glaciers are at high altitudes and are not easily monitored, if monitored at all. So these GLOFs can occur without warning for downstream communities.
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u/rensd12 Aug 26 '26
Holy shit, what force!!! That's insane. Everyone died in these video's, no other way!!!
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u/DraccoKnightblade Aug 26 '26
Jesus...at first I was like 'oh get to higher ground! Climb that building!' And then...wow, I just hope for those that were caught's sake, that death came quickly. X_x
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u/StrongEggplant8120 Aug 26 '26 edited Aug 26 '26
Ive found the buildings in the video. The big one is filmed from the nepalese side of the river towards the chinese border. It is the chinese customs office building and has apparently survived the flood. https://english.nepalnews.com/s/nation/rasuwagadhi-transit-sees-the-arrival-of-imports-from-china/
The video after is the customs yard on the nepalese side and has not survived the flood. Unfortunately that means everyone you see running is no longer with us
Eta deleted incorrect information.
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u/Adventurous-Pen-6633 Aug 26 '26
That a flash flood??? That looks more like a tsunami or a landslide. So terrifying, may god be with them!
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u/seattledoctor1 Aug 26 '26
I think this is a really dumb question… but is there any possible way someone can survive an event like this? Like is there an equivalent to, “stop drop and roll” when it comes to a flood? Or is this too large with too much power therefore there is nowhere to hide?
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u/Sardoodledome Aug 26 '26
if you can survive "somehow" the impact, you are buried under so much dirt that you will probably wished you died in the impact ....
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u/akolomf Aug 26 '26 edited Aug 26 '26
The problem is, that besides of the force of the water itself just slamming you off your feet before swallowing you, you are now in a 0 visibility 0 oxygen environment that contains debree and glass shards and even heavy weight objects beeing thrown around and potentially at you. Unless you find some Water Tight Room in a Sturdy Building, There is no chance of survival And even if you do survive in that room, you are now burried under layers of mud, with no guarantee someone will find and rescue you before you run out of oxygen/water/food.
So i dont think there is anything you can do at all to survive this or to increase your chances except for pure luck. Which must be terrifying when you are in that situation. Like you see this black wall of death is approaching you, you know you dont have enough time to climb up the slope high enough to be safe. You decide to run anyway, because everyone else does aswell, then you hear it behind you, immediately throws you to the ground and lights out.
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u/WillAndSky Aug 26 '26
Latter in this case unfortunately. I guess try to keep your head above water and protect your head at the same time but this is just way to much
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u/-Daetrax- Aug 26 '26
You won't have a choice where in that water you are. You'll be moved about by the current as it pleases and you'll get smacked against whatever is there untill you're dead.
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u/The_F_B_I Aug 26 '26
you'll get smacked against whatever is there untill you're dead.
You misspelled "you will get ground into a paste like a pebble in a rock tumbler"
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u/TheGreatZephyr Aug 26 '26
This much water carrying debris as well... youd be dead instantly. Like getting hit by 1000 semi trailers going 200mph, nothing you could do.
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u/cr8zyfoo Aug 26 '26
Survival advice for a flash flood is "get to higher ground" and "swim defensively" (meaning float on your back with your feet downstream to prevent hitting underwater debris and your head up to look where you're going). There's no survival advice for a situation like this video.
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u/Aware-Code7244 Aug 26 '26
Is there links to regional humanitarian organizations, assistance that can be shared? Are there other sources of verification?
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u/SpellbladeAluriel Aug 26 '26
I don't think anyone there survived... It looked so violent holy shit