Langtang
ValleyWikipedia
47
MENTIONS
26
EPISODES
22
PODCASTS
Search complete. 47 mentions across 26 episodes found for "Langtang".
Sep 9, 2026
Adrian BallingerHOST
Um, but it sounds like a huge piece of the bedrock released, which then caused the glacier sitting on top of the bedrock to follow suit because it was no longer supported underneath.
Adrian BallingerHOST
That combination of billions of tons of ice and rock, uh, then traveled, uh, thousands of feet down off this mountain called Langtang Lirung into the river valley, generating massive amounts of energy.
Adrian BallingerHOST
That energy called all-- caused a lot of the ice to melt and also picked up all the water from the river valleys.
Adrian BallingerHOST
There may or may not have been a dammed lake.
speaker_1HOST
It's that classic tension between safety and commerce.
speaker_1HOST
They argued that losing another major trek would be financially devastating, especially since places like Langtang were already closed.
speaker_0HOST
It's wild to me.
speaker_0HOST
It's like you're trying to negotiate with gravity and a washed-away bridge just to save your quarterly earnings report.
speaker_0HOST
Okay, early season.
speaker_1HOST
The advice is, yes, come, but you must expect alternative routes.
speaker_1HOST
Have a backup trek ready because Langtang or Manaslu might be closed.
speaker_0HOST
And don't believe the everything is fine PR.
Ian AllenCORRESPONDENT
But of course, they're arriving in a country still railing from that catastrophic flooding a couple of weeks ago.
Ian AllenCORRESPONDENT
Their original route would have taken them through the badly affected Langtang region, but it'll be about three weeks before they actually reach that part of the country.
Ian AllenCORRESPONDENT
The question of whether they should still go wasn't lost on them.
Ian AllenCORRESPONDENT
They've spent the best part of two years planning this trip.
Anderson CooperHOST
What was coming materialized in north central Nepal, near the border with China, seemingly out of nowhere.
Austin LordSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
The scientific consensus, as I understand it, there was a fracture of a massive volume, uh, on the north side of Langtang Li-Rum.
speaker_4SOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
It's one of the most isolated corners of the Himalayas.
speaker_4SOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
It is not something that people would've had an eye on to see this coming.
27 MINS LATER
speaker_4SOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
What we've been seeing now in recent years, as Nepal's economy has developed, local communities have started to settle on the flat lands in the river basin, areas that are easy to build.
speaker_4SOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
Nepal is experiencing sort of this urbanization.
Anderson CooperHOST
This is Langtang and many of its surrounding villages before the most recent disaster struck.
Anderson CooperHOST
This is what it looked like roughly one year earlier.
ZhenfeiHOST
In geology, this main suture zone is called the main central thrust, which stretches for 2,900 kilometers along the Himalayan mountain range.
ZhenfeiHOST
And Langtang, where this incident occurred, lies right on this belt.
ZhenfeiHOST
So you might ask, why haven't these loose rocks fallen down all these years? But they fell recently.
ZhenfeiHOST
It was ice.
ZhenfeiHOST
The answer is coming up.
ZhenfeiHOST
This collapse wasn't just a simple case of a glacier falling.
ZhenfeiHOST
According to the latest report from Time magazine, satellite photos taken before the incident show that a massive fracture, about 1.4 kilometers wide, had already appeared on the north face of Langtang Lirong at an altitude of over 5,000 meters.
ZhenfeiHOST
As the water from the melting permafrost seeped into this crack, it eventually caused the entire block of bedrock, along with the ice on top, to collapse, crashing down from an altitude of thousands of meters onto the gentle glacier below and then roaring all the way down.
Shreejan SimkhadaGUEST
You know, I cannot, there is no other viewpoint that's going to be like that.
Shreejan SimkhadaGUEST
But if you have seven, eight days, you can go to Langtang, Langtang Valley to King's Creek, which has a very beautiful view.
Shreejan SimkhadaGUEST
Not similar, a different kind of view.
Shreejan SimkhadaGUEST
Yeah,
speaker_0HOST
And this ties back to the trekking closures we mentioned.
speaker_0HOST
Manaslu is closed, but the situation with Langtang and Ganesh Himal is just, it's tragically ironic.
speaker_1HOST
It really is.
speaker_0HOST
Because the Langtang Valley trek itself is actually entirely unaffected.
speaker_0HOST
The valley is physically fine, but it is currently closed because the only route leading to it has been completely destroyed.
speaker_1HOST
Right.
speaker_0HOST
But I have to push back a little on the geography for a second.
speaker_0HOST
How can a destination like the Langtang Valley remain completely physically untouched by the disaster yet become completely inaccessible?
speaker_3NARRATOR
Of those missing, 844 are foreigners, according to official figures.
speaker_3NARRATOR
The disaster struck on August 26th when a glacier on Nepal's mountain, Langtang, Lerang, it fractured at an altitude of about 5,200 meters.
speaker_3NARRATOR
The fracture triggered an ice rock avalanche that developed into a massive debris flow and swept through valleys along the border in just a few minutes.
speaker_3NARRATOR
The disaster also buried the Gyerong border crossing in Shizang.
Bethan DaviesGUEST
So what happened in Nepal which is an extremely tragic event, is that a large mass of rock fell down the mountain.
Bethan DaviesGUEST
It fell from the top of the Lirang- Langtang Mountain all the way down to the valley floor.
Bethan DaviesGUEST
That massive rock had a glacier on top of it so it's a big mass of ice and rock that's come all the way down the val- all the way from the top of the mountain to the bottom.
Bethan DaviesGUEST
Now if it had just been rock maybe the disaster would have perhaps not been quite so severe but the volume of ice within this landslide caused a massive issue because that provided the water for a huge debris flow that then took out the whole of the valley and progressed down the valley and wiped everything in its path.
Bethan DaviesGUEST
We've long predicated an increase in these kinds of events and I think we're going to see evermore.
Bethan DaviesGUEST
We know that the area is warming really, really rapidly.
Bethan DaviesGUEST
A load of weather stations in the Langtang Valley at about 5,000 meters above sea level show that they're warming at nought .3 degrees per decade.
Bethan DaviesGUEST
And the hot- ...that area at that altitude is now 1.6 degrees warmer-
speaker_1HOST
The issue is that geographical nuance is completely lost in international headlines.
speaker_1HOST
When global media reports that the Langtang Valley is completely severed from the outside world, which is true, it currently requires a grueling two-day hike just to reach the nearest functional town tourists sitting in London or New York assume the entire country is underwater.
speaker_0HOST
Right.
speaker_1HOST
The campaign is desperately trying to communicate that major hubs situated in entirely different topographical zones like Bokhara, Chitwan National Park, and the Everest region remain fully operational.
16 more episodes mention Langtang.
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