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Hiker reunited with backpack 60 years after he fell into a glacier in Austria

An 86-year-old mountaineer has been reunited with his backpack and climbing equipment after the kit emerged from a melting glacier in Austria – more than 60 years after he was forced to leave them there. Items including an ice axe, camera and a pipe dating from the 1950s or 1960s were discovered on the Sulztalferner glacier in Austria’s Tyrol region, at an altitude of 2,955 metres (9,700ft) above sea level, by a hiker in July. Austrian police began an investigation and through heavily frayed documents found in the backpack discovered the owner’s name and tracked him down. The man had fallen into the crevasse while crossing the glacier with friends in August 1963. The group was held together by a rope, so his friends were able to pull him free. Police said to reduce his weight he had removed his backpack and thrown it into the crevasse. They did not publicly name the man but said he was too ill to collect the items. They were returned to him via his son. The accelerating retreat of European glaciers, which scientists say is primarily driven by human-caused global heating, has revealed a vast array of relics, ancient ecosystems and human remains in recent decades. In 2015 a barracks where Italian troops had sheltered while fighting the Austro-Hungarian army during the White war – a battle waged across Alpine terrain during the first world war – was discovered on Mount Scorluzzo, a peak overlooking the Stelvio pass. The bodies of dozens of soldiers, some still in their uniforms, have emerged from the melting ice within the past 20 years. The most extraordinary discovery of human remains on a melting glacier was made in 1991, when two German hikers found the 5,300-year-old mummified body of a hunter in the Ötztal Alps, close to Italy’s border with Austria. The body of “Ötzi the Iceman”, replete with tattoos, is on display at a museum in Bolzano.

Nepal flash flood: more than 350 killed amid warning of fresh danger from rising lake water – latest updates

King Charles III has responded to the disaster in Nepal and Tibet. In a written message, the king said: My wife and I are heartbroken to hear of the devastating flooding that has struck the Nepal-China border. Many in the United Kingdom have strong, deep and personal ties to this part of the world. We send our most profound sympathy to all those who have so tragically lost their loved ones and we feel deeply for the many families awaiting anxiously the news of friends and relations. Our hearts go out also to the families of all the police and Armed Forces personnel who lost their lives while carrying out their courageous duty in the service of others and we give our deepest thanks to those who have responded so selflessly in undertaking rescue efforts. Our special thoughts and prayers remain with all those affected and, as always, the United Kingdom stands ready to help support those in need. Charles R.

Search on for at least 33 Britons missing after flash floods in Nepal and Tibet

Rescue teams in Nepal are searching for at least 33 British nationals who are among those missing after flash floods ravaged its border with Tibet, killing at least 270 people. Nearly 1,400 people are missing, most of them tourists, authorities have said, after a glacier collapse triggered floods that roared down valleys and razed entire villages. The tour company Kailash Journeys confirmed it had not been able to account for seven UK nationals – five women and two men aged between 18 and 55 – travelling with it. Another tour operator, the Trekkers’ Society, said among the British citizens who had been completing one of its tours to the sacred Hindu site of Mount Kailash were four males aged 14, 50, 50 and 54 and five women aged 40, 46, 50, 50 and 53. The tour operator Alpine Eco Trek said a 13-year-old girl was among the missing British nationals and two Irish citizens were also missing. They were on a nine-day tour to Mount Kailash and crossing into Tibet from Nepal when they became trapped at the border as the flash floods struck. Other missing British nationals with Alpine Eco Trek are three men aged 65, 64 and 52 and seven women aged 44, 47, 51, 60, 63, 63 and 65, according to travel logs. Andy Burnham has pledged an initial £5m in UK government support and offered to send emergency responders and rescue support to assist Nepal’s disaster response efforts. Speaking to journalists during a visit to south Wales, he said: “It’s a devastating picture that is emerging from what has happened in Nepal. Scenes that we’ve never seen the like before, I don’t think, certainly the scale of the devastation. “So there is immediate action being taken. We are deploying consular support staff to the region so that British nationals will be able to access support 24/7. Obviously there are a number of British nationals who currently are thought to be missing and we’ll be providing all the support we can to their families in what is a very distressing and devastating situation.” In a statement he added: “In the past, Nepal has been there for Britain in our hour of need, and we will be there for Nepal in its hour of need right now.” The president of the Nepal Centre for Disaster Management, Bishal Nath Upreti, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the flash floods were like a “tsunami from the sky”. He said: “It’s a huge debris, and in fact, after the 2015 earthquake, this is one of the largest disasters that we have [had] in Nepal.” He added: “It was such a huge amount of water. You can imagine it is 20m cubic metres excess water on the river … Villages and villages along the almost 40 to 50 kilometres were completely wiped out.” The Nepal tourism board said on Wednesday that 33 UK citizens were among the foreign nationals unaccounted for. At least three people had died in Tibet, according to China’s state broadcaster CCTV, while the Xinhua news agency said 558 people were unaccounted for in the region. Rescuers are racing to locate people missing in the mountainous Rasuwa region, which borders China’s autonomous region of Tibet and is popular with trekkers and pilgrims. Pramod Poudel, from Uckfield, East Sussex, told the BBC that his wife, parents, brother and uncle had been caught in flash flooding. He said he would will fly to Nepal on Thursday night to try to make contact with them. Poudel said: “I guess there is no power so they can’t charge their phones – to be honest, it’s a very hard and difficult time at the moment.” In an emotional interview, he said: “I have seen pictures of where my home town used to be… and there is nothing there now.” The UK government minister Pat McFadden told Times Radio the picture was “not completely clear yet”, with “many, many more” people understood to be missing than those reported by the Nepalese authorities, and no clear figures from China yet. He said: “In terms of missing Britons, my colleague the foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, has posted on social media phone numbers that people can call for further information. “But it’s a fast-moving picture. We don’t have a full picture yet of the numbers missing.” The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said it was “deeply saddened by the loss of life and devastation caused by the floods in Nepal”. It added: “British nationals in Nepal should follow local authority advice and exercise caution while travelling. For consular assistance call (+44) (0)207 008 5000 or (+977) (0)14237100.”

Nearly 1,400 missing, mostly tourists, after Nepal-Tibet flash flood kills at least 356

Rescuers are searching for nearly 1,400 people, most of them tourists, who are missing after a catastrophic flash flood hit Nepal and Tibet, thundering down valleys, obliterating entire villages and killing at least 356 people. Efforts to locate those missing – including hundreds of people from India, the US, UK, Australia and Canada – have been complicated by the destruction of dozens of bridges and almost 25 miles (40km) of roads in the mountainous region popular with trekkers and pilgrims. Videos from Wednesday’s disaster showed a massive wall of water crashing down on the border as people tried to flee. Trucks were upended and houses, roads ⁠and power plants swept away in Nepal, while officials in Tibet said they feared “major casualties” after a mudslide hit a border crossing. Rescue teams have found bodies hundreds of miles downstream from the disaster zone in the Chitwan district of Nepal, near the Tibetan border. Dozens of injured people have been transported to Kathmandu for advanced medical care. By Thursday morning, the Nepali army had rescued more than 100 people from flood-affected areas by helicopter. David Fisher, the head of the Nepal delegation of the International Federation of the Red Cross, said entire villages and market areas had been wiped out. In the affected areas, houses, trees and vehicles were submerged or buried in mudslides. Helicopters hovered overhead all day, helping to rescue survivors. The power, volume and speed of the surging waters gave little time for anyone to flee. People from the hard-hit areas of Nuwakot and Dhading were seen gathering outside a Nepali army training centre – the base for helicopter rescue operations – seeking information about missing family members. Police were recording the names of the missing just outside the barracks gate. Mobile phone torches were their only source of light as the area remained without electricity due to damaged hydroelectric infrastructure. The village of Soley, in Nuwakot, which had about 25 homes, was virtually wiped out, according to Nirajan Paudyal, a Kathmandu-based journalist whose parents and other relatives live there. Desperate for information, he travelled to the area on Thursday for news of his family. “There is no update till now,” he said. “I fear there won’t be any update.” Almost 600 foreigners were among 826 people missing in Nepal, police and tourism ⁠officials said. Among those unaccounted were 177 from India, 63 from the US, 34 from Australia, 33 from Britain and 25 from Canada. Chinese state media said at least 558 were missing on the Tibet side of the border, of whom at least 260 were foreign nationals. Police in Nepal said 353 ⁠bodies had been recovered by Thursday afternoon local time, while Chinese state media reported three dead on the Tibet side of the border. Many of the victims were on a pilgrimage to Kailash Mansarovar, a high-altitude site in ‌Tibet revered by Hindus and Buddhists among others. Early reports from Nepali officials suggested an earthquake could have caused the lower part of a glacier to collapse and trigger ‌the floods. But the US Geological Survey later said what was initially reported ‌as a 4.4-magnitude earthquake was a seismic shock generated by glacial rock and ice collapsing and the flow of debris. “No earthquake had occurred,” it said. An initial study of Planet Labs satellite imagery indicated a landslide of ice and rock triggered the debris-laden flood in the Lhende River, about 12 miles (20km) north-east of the Nepal-China Rasuwagadhi border crossing, Nepal’s national disaster authority said. Experts say the risk of such events is compounded by the extreme topography of the Himalayas. People shared harrowing stories of how they managed to survive. “I started running. Then a wall of water came thundering down as if it was an earthquake,” said Bibek Kumal, a labourer who was working downstream from the worst-hit Rasuwa district, near Nepal’s Himalayan border with China’s Tibet. From his hospital bed, Kumal said the torrent swept him downstream amid mud and debris but he survived by clinging to a mango tree. “Had there been no mango tree, I would ‌have been washed away to death,” he said. Keshav Prasad Baral, a 68-year-old survivor who was being treated at a small hospital, said: “It was a huge gush of mud coming straight towards us. As it got closer, it kept rising higher and higher. “I tried to grab my wife’s hand and take ⁠her to the terrace. But she was swept away by the mud. Four or five hours later, a helicopter came to rescue me. My wife is still somewhere beneath the mud. She’s gone.” The United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, said UN teams and partners were mobilising supplies and personnel to support communities affected by the disaster. The US government said it would provide $500,000 in emergency assistance. Tibet government officials deployed nearly 800 emergency workers and 150 vehicles as well as sniffer dogs and speedboats to help the rescue efforts, China’s official Xinhua news agency said. The Chinese premier, Li Qiang, travelled to the affected area on the China-Nepal border on Thursday to oversee search efforts there. The tour company Himalayan Glacier said 47 people, including two children, were missing from one of its groups in Nepal. Among them were 15 Australians, 10 Canadians, nine Nepalis, eight Americans, two Britons, two Singaporeans and one Russian-American dual citizen, its managing director, Sanket Pandey, said. The Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, said his thoughts were with those concerned about their loved ones, and that getting information about the status of missing people remained difficult. Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report

How the deadly Nepal and Tibet flash flood unfolded – a visual guide

At 8.37am on Wednesday, an enormous section ⁠of a glacier in the Himalayas sheared free and crashed on to the valley floor in Nepal’s Langtang national park, about 35 miles (60km) north of the capital, Kathmandu, near the mountainous Nepal-Tibet border. Such was the force of the event, it was initially reported as an earthquake of magnitude 4.4. The US Geological Survey later determined the tremor was caused by glacial rock and ice collapsing, registering a magnitude of 5.2. The collapse triggered a huge release of water, mud, rock and ice that thundered down valleys and swept down the Lhende Khola, Bhote Koshi and Trishuli rivers. The high-speed flash floods careered towards northern Nepalese towns, including areas popular with mountaineering tourists and pilgrims. Horrifying videos from the Gyirong border post, which connects Nepal and Tibet, showed people running for their lives as the wall of debris obliterated buildings and swept away lines of buses. In Nepal, houses and roads ⁠were washed away in seconds. “It was a huge gush of mud coming straight towards us,” said Keshav Prasad Baral, a 68-year-old survivor who was being treated at a small hospital. “As it got closer, it kept rising higher and higher. When I saw it enter our home, I tried to grab my wife’s hand and take ⁠her to the terrace. But she was swept away by the mud. Four or five hours later, a helicopter came to rescue me. My wife is still somewhere beneath the mud. She’s gone.” Another survivor described being saved by clinging to a mango tree as he watched the house where he had been ⁠working disappear. In a stark illustration of the deluge’s deadly power, a bridge crossing the Trishuli River was shown in a video being washed away in a tsunami-like flood. Multi-level homes were quickly submerged as the torrent gouged through the riverside town. Bibek Kumal, a Nepali labourer, had been working in Bidur when others sounded the alarm. “I started running. Then a wall of water came thundering down as if it was an earthquake,” ⁠Kumal said from his bed at Kathmandu’s National Trauma Centre. The torrent had swept him downstream amid mud and debris but “luckily I was stuck up in a mango tree”, he ‌said. “Had there been no mango tree, I would ‌have been washed away to death.” At a location just north of Kumal’s lucky escape in Bidur, a video shows an immense flood swallowing a river valley as it surges towards Betrawati Bazaar, an important historical and pilgrimage town. Mud and water moving at such high speeds forms a lethal combination “like liquid concrete” that cannot be outrun, said Hatim Sharif, a hydrologist at the University of Texas San Antonio. Satellite imagery taken above Kolpurtar shows how the mud, water and debris swallowed up land on either side of the river. Rescue operations were difficult on Wednesday because of damage to infrastructure and higher than normal river levels. Helicopters could not land in Nepal’s affected areas of Syapru Besi and Timure, in the Rasuwa region, which has a population of about 50,000. Rescuers waded through mud and sludge looking for survivors after flood waters buried the lower floors of multi-storey buildings. “There is devastation everywhere we look,” Tula Bahadur BK, a health worker in Rasuwa, told Reuters. “The settlements next to the river have been completely swept away. Five of my own relatives are missing.” Dave Petley, an earth scientist with Nottingham Trent University, described the scale of the event as close to “apocalyptic”. The huge volume of water was possibly a combination of ice that converted to water as a result of the initial collapse and river water. But until the exact cause of the disaster could be confirmed by scientists, that was just speculation, he noted in the science outlet Eos. The Himalayan mountain range spans several countries in south Asia and has many of the world’s highest peaks and remaining glaciers. The steep slopes and the lush valleys below are especially vulnerable to flooding and landslides, and extreme weather events such as intense monsoons and melting glaciers have become more common because of warming due to human-caused climate change. Researchers in Kathmandu found earlier this year that glaciers across the Hindu Kush Himalaya region were melting faster, with ice loss rates doubling since 2000. With Reuters and Associated Press

What caused the catastrophic flash flood in Nepal and Tibet – and how does a glacier collapse?

Flash floods that swept through the Nepal-Tibet border region on Wednesday have left scores dead and more than 1,000 people missing. Here’s what we know so far, and what likely caused the disaster. Nepal flash floods: what we know so far On Wednesday morning local time, a landslide of ice and rock resulted in a torrent of mud, water and debris bursting the banks of the Trishuli river, also known as the Bhotekoshi, which runs between China and Nepal. Homes, roads, bridges and power plants were swept away. Officials in Nepal said 403 people, including 341 from foreign countries including India, the US, the UK, Australia, South Korea and Malaysia, have been reported missing. In Tibet, China’s state broadcaster said at least three people were killed and 265 were missing. Experts at the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development said water levels on the Trishuli river rose by as much as nine metres in half an hour. The Lhende Khola river, a tributary of the Bhotekoshi, was most affected, they said. “The Lhende Khola has flooded twice in 14 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. What caused the flooding in Nepal? An avalanche from a glacier is believed to be the likely cause of the flash flooding. Local media reported Nepal’s foreign minister, Shisir Khanal, told the country’s parliament on Wednesday that initial reports suggested the floods could have been caused by an earthquake in the ⁠area that triggered a landslide. However, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said that while the event was initially reported to be caused by a magnitude 4.4 earthquake, further analysis showed the “seismic event was a glacial collapse and debris flow that caused subsequent catastrophic impacts downstream” and “no earthquake had occurred”. The USGS noted the glacial collapse had registered as a magnitude 5.2 seismic event on the Richter scale, occurring near the border between Nepal and China at 8.37am local time on Wednesday. According to Assoc Prof Daniel Shugar, a geomorphologist at the University of Calgary in Canada, initial satellite analysis showed a 0.2 sq km chunk of ice “collapsed about 1.2km vertically”. “What I can see in … satellite imagery from Planet Labs, the lower part of a glacier broke off at about 5,200 metres and crashed onto the valley floor about 1,200 metres below,” he said. The satellite imagery also seemed to show that a large ‌amount of snow had melted in the 24 hours prior to the disaster, he said. “Some of the glaciers in the valley were covered in snow yesterday and today they are mostly bare ice. So in other words (and I haven’t seen any weather station data yet), it was probably warm.” Shugar said construction could also be a factor. Prof Andrew Mackintosh, a glaciologist at Monash University in Melbourne, said it was unclear whether the collapse was isolated to the glacier, or was the “whole mountainside collapsing that included part of the glacier”. “When a glacier of that scale collapses, it generates a lot of water, and then there’s a cascading sequence of events … where the water and the sediment combine and bulks up and creates the flood.” An international group of glacier researchers has said that while a glacial collapse was “certainly involved”, it was “unlikely to be the sole cause”. How often do glaciers collapse – and is the climate crisis a contributing factor? “These sorts of large glacier collapses are really shocking,” Mackintosh said. “It’s hard as a glaciologist not be alarmed by these events that seem different to what we’ve observed previously.” However, he said “there have been so few of these documented that we’re not really able to make very clear statements about the specific relationship between glacier collapse and climate change yet”. Scientists do, however, “have very high confidence in the relationship between glacier retreat and climate change”. “We also know that mountain permafrost is degrading under a warming climate,” Mackintosh added. He described permafrost, ground that is frozen year round, as being akin to a “glue that holds the rock and sometimes adjacent glaciers … together on very steep slopes”. The Himalayas – spanning Nepal, India, China, Bhutan, and Pakistan – are warming twice as fast as the global average, putting the region at increased risk of avalanches, landslides and floods. The United Nations said in 2023 that Nepal’s mountains had lost close to one-third of their ice in just over 30 years due to global warming. An assessment published that year found that Hindu Kush Himalayan glaciers disappeared 65% faster between 2011 and 2020 than in the previous decade. In 2021, a Himalayan glacier broke off and caused flash flooding in the Indian state of Uttarakhand, leaving 200 people dead or missing. Subsequent research suggested that a 27m-cubic-metre avalanche of rock and glacier ice transformed into “an extraordinarily large and mobile debris flow”. Though not thought to be a cause of the August 2026 event, mountain areas are also at risk of “glacial lake outburst floods”. Glacial lakes form behind natural dams as a result of glacier melt, and can cause catastrophic outburst floods if their natural dam walls are breached. Assoc Prof Adrian McCallum, a glaciologist and polar engineer at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia, said: “With a warming climate, glaciers recede, ice becomes water, that water gets trapped.” More than 12,000 deaths have already been attributed to such floods globally. According to the UN, Nepal has more than 2,000 glacial lakes, of which 21 are considered potentially dangerous. – with Reuters and Associated Press

Nepal-Tibet flash flood: what we know so far

Rescue teams rushed into action after flooding and landslides caused by a “glacial collapse” at the China-Nepal border left hundreds of people dead or missing. Officials in Nepal said on Thursday that more than 400 tourists were among those unaccounted for, including many foreign nationals, while China reported more than 500 people missing including more than 250 foreigners. Surveillance video from the Chinese side of the border showed a huge wave of mud and debris crashing over a building several storeys high, engulfing it as dozens of people fled for their lives below. The surge swept away buses and cars. Other videos showed entire towns and their surrounds wiped out as the muddy flood rushed down the mountain slopes and along populated valleys. An earthquake was initially thought to be the cause; but by Thursday the US Geological Survey (USGS) said “a glacial collapse” was responsible for the disaster. “This event was initially reported as a magnitude 4.4 earthquake. Additional analysis of nearby seismic stations, long period seismic waves, and satellite imagery led to the determination that the seismic event was instead a glacial collapse and debris flow, and that no earthquake had occurred.” The USGS first reported the seismic jolt early on Wednesday about 66km (41 miles) north of Kathmandu, near the border. Entire villages and markets were “wiped out”, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said. It was dispatching emergency supplies including blankets, first aid kits, stretchers and body bags. The United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, said UN ⁠teams and ‌partners ‌were ‌mobilising supplies and personnel in Nepal ‌to support affected communities. Experts warned that a lingering blockage upstream on the Nepal-China border river could produce a second flood. Nepal’s tourism ministry said the missing included scores of Indian nationals, Britons, Americans, Australians and Canadians as well as others from South Korea, the Netherlands, Malaysia, Portugal and South Africa. At least 28 Nepalese police were missing, a police spokesperson said. By evening local time on Thursday in Nepal, police said the death toll was at more than 350, with more than 800 missing. There were at least three dead and 558 missing in Tibet, an autonomous region of China, authorities said China’s president, Xi Jinping, said “the most urgent task is doing everything possible to search for and rescue the missing people”, according to Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.

Russia says UK ‘playing with fire’ amid reports CIA chief has warned Kremlin not to attack Nato

Russia has said it could retaliate against the UK for its support of Kyiv by striking military targets inside and outside Ukraine, amid reports that the director of the CIA warned the Kremlin against attacking Nato during a secretive visit this week. Andy Burnham, Britain’s prime minister, said on Monday the UK would allow Kyiv access to classified technology to start ⁠its own production of Storm Shadow long-range cruise missiles. Maria ⁠Zakharova, Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson, said on Thursday Britain and France were “playing ⁠with fire”. The Wall Street Journal reported that a visit by John Ratcliffe, the CIA chief, to Moscow on Tuesday had followed a US intelligence assessment that Russia could be planning to test Nato with a limited assault on an allied country. This could range from a cyber-attack to a small-scale incursion, probably in a Baltic nation. Russia has made frequent threats against Ukraine’s western allies during the war, including thinly veiled nuclear threats and others apparently aimed at diplomatic missions in Kyiv. Asked ‌to comment ‌on the reports of Ratcliffe’s visit – and despite Thursday morning’s threat against UK targets – Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesperson, said: “A lot of this kind of scare-story material is being published right now. Of course, it has ‌nothing to do with reality and nothing to do with the intentions of the Russian Federation.” Russia is believed to be contemplating a further escalation of its war with Ukraine after months of escalating Ukrainian attacks on Russia’s oil refining infrastructure and other sites, which are imposing an increasing economic toll. The Kremlin has adopted ever more bellicose rhetoric, much of it aimed at a domestic audience, as the war in Ukraine has been brought to its doorstep. In the space of a few days Russia has invoked the threat of its nuclear arsenal against Japan over its territorial claim to the disputed Kuril Islands. It has described relations with the US as a “crisis” and at a historic low point. Ratcliffe’s reported warning mirrored one made by his predecessor, William Burns, in 2021 before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine – which Moscow also denied it was contemplating. Concerns over Moscow’s intentions have been escalating amid a rise in incidents of Russian hybrid warfare attributed to Moscow across Europe, from cyber-attacks and drones to arson, at facilities associated with supporting Ukraine’s war efforts. Russia and the US have tried to play down Ratcliffe’s meeting with his Russian counterparts: Donald Trump on Wednesday described the visit as “semi routine”. However, the unusual nature of the encounter has caused intense speculation in the west and Russia. Nato countries neighbouring Russia have moved quickly to increase their military readiness. Poland this week announced it had taken delivery of its first shipment of South Korean Black Panther main battle tanks, which will be deployed near the border with Russia’s Kaliningrad region. Cezary Tomczyk, Poland’s deputy defence minister, said this month Warsaw was preparing for the possibility of a full-scale conflict. Tomczyk told Super Express media: “We are preparing for war, hoping it never happens.”