00:00Climate change played a significant role in last month's deadly Himalayan disaster in Nepal,
00:07thinning glaciers and thawing mountain permafrost in ways that likely destabilized the slope before it collapsed,
00:15a report released Thursday by the World Weather Attribution Group says.
00:20The collapse near Nepal's border on China on 26 August triggered a torrent of water, ice,
00:27builders and sediment that swept through communities along the Trishuli River corridor,
00:33killing more than 1,300 people and leaving over 5,000 missing.
00:39The analysis did not determine whether the collapse would have happened without climate change.
00:45However, researchers concluded that warming intensified several processes that made the slope less stable over decades.
00:53According to the report, warming had pushed the altitude at which ground remains consistently frozen upward by roughly 100 meters
01:02per decade.
01:03The report found glaciers in the region have been losing mass for decades at a rate equivalent to more than
01:10half a meter of thinning each year.
01:12The Langtang Lerong Glacier, located in the region where the disaster occurred last month,
01:19has retreated about a half a kilometer since the 1990s, exposing rock once covered by ice.
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