Mountaineer Um Hong-gil points to climate change, tourism over Nepal floods
Mountaineer Um Hong-gil / Korea Times file
Having scaled 16 Himalayan peaks, Um has witnessed impact of climate change through the region since 1985
The shock was immense, but the disaster had been anticipated.
Mountaineer Um Hong-gil, who has climbed 16 Himalayan peaks at elevations of 8,000 meters or higher, could not hide his deep sorrow over the devastating floods in Nepal, which have left more than 1,000 people dead or injured, during a phone interview with the Hankook Ilbo on Friday.
Um said he had witnessed firsthand the Himalayas becoming warmer, glaciers melting and landslides becoming more frequent since he began traveling through the region in 1985. He had long warned that a major disaster could eventually strike, but said the scale of the recent devastation was far worse than he had expected.
The areas along the Nepal-China border affected by the floods are also familiar territory for Um. He visited the region as recently as late May this year.
“The area is on the fastest route to Mount Kailash, a sacred site for Buddhists and Hindus, and the disaster may have been particularly severe because it coincided with the peak pilgrimage season,” Um said.
When he visited, the area was crowded with pilgrims from around the world. Um recalled seeing a chaotic scene in a narrow gorge, with not only Chinese checkpoints but also commercial districts built along the route and long lines of visitors waiting at bus stops.
Most Korean visitors to Mount Kailash typically travel through Lhasa, the capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region, rather than through the affected route, Um said, suggesting that they were likely spared the worst of the disaster.
Nepal's monsoon season runs from June through September, bringing heavy rainfall and weakening the ground. Um said landslides frequently wash away roads running alongside rivers, while swollen rivers can sweep away homes.
“Even when I visited the affected area a few months ago, there were already signs of roads being damaged or washed away in many places,” he said.
An aerial view shows houses lying deluged in sludge after flash floods at Devighat, Bidur Municipality, along the confluence of the Trishuli and Tadi rivers in Nepal's Nuwakot district, Thursday. AFP-Yonhap
Climate change at the root
Climate change has been identified as a fundamental cause of the worsening disasters in the Himalayas.
Um said he began noticing dramatic changes in the region’s weather around 2000. Snow that once froze solid after rainfall began melting, while snowfall would often start and then quickly stop. The overall climate, he said, had clearly become milder.
“I could feel the weather changing every year from around 2000,” Um said. “Even when I climbed to elevations of around 5,000 meters in the Himalayas during winter, it was no longer as cold as it used to be.”
According to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, temperatures at Everest Base Camp in 2023 were 2.7 degrees Celsius higher than a decade earlier.
As the climate has changed, the landscape itself has also begun to transform. Um said he has repeatedly seen mountain trails that were once considered safe suddenly disappear because of landslides and other environmental changes.
But Um pointed to another major factor: the rapid commercialization of the Himalayas.
“The biggest problem is the tourism development of the Himalayas,” he said. “Roads have been built extensively so vehicles can travel as high into the mountains as possible to attract tourists.”
Routes that once required more than a week of walking to reach a base camp can now be completed in as little as four days, he said.
“Many of these roads are not properly paved, so they may have contributed to greater soil erosion,” Um added.
Hydropower projects also a concern
Um also said the construction of hydropower plants throughout the Himalayas may have contributed to the severity of flooding.
He said the mountains and surrounding valleys are increasingly unable to contain the growing volume of water, causing rivers to overflow their banks and triggering repeated disasters.
“People who lived in valleys near the Himalayan mountains used to build their homes about 50 meters away from the river without major problems,” Um said. “But as the volume of water flowing down the mountains has increased, homes are being washed away and farmland is frequently buried or swept away by sediment.”
Um warned that nature in the Himalayas is increasingly becoming uncontrollable and urged governments to focus on monitoring and management before conditions worsen.
“Glacial lakes could burst at any time,” he said. “Countries located along the Himalayan range need to keep a very close watch on these glacial lakes.”
This article from the Hankook Ilbo, the sister publication of The Korea Times, is translated by a generative AI system and edited by The Korea Times.