Climate change raised risk of Nepal flood: scientists

Climate change is leading to conditions that can destabilise high-mountain rock and ice, strengthening prospects for disasters such as this week’s Himalayan flood along the border between Nepal and China’s Tibet, scientists say. At least 390 people have been killed and 1400 others are missing, authorities say, a day after a massive wall of mud and rock collapsed into a Himalayan river, sending catastrophic floods through towns and valleys. “Climate change is generating conditions that can destabilise high-mountain rock and ice,” said Simon Cox, chief scientist at the Mountains to Sea program at Earth Sciences New Zealand. That in turn…