Avalanche Destroys 27 Buildings at China's Gyirong Port After 6-Minute Warning Window
Updated
Updated · The New York Times · Aug 31
Avalanche Destroys 27 Buildings at China's Gyirong Port After 6-Minute Warning Window
3 articles · Updated · The New York Times · Aug 31
Summary
A tsunami-like surge of ice, boulders and water demolished 27 buildings at the Gyirong Port complex on Wednesday before racing into Nepal.
Officials said the avalanche left only six or seven minutes between the mountainside collapse and the wave hitting the border crossing.
The disaster struck after China had spent months preparing for glacial lake outburst floods following a lake burst and landslide 14 months earlier that swept away trucks, homes and a bridge.
That earlier event had shut the port for nearly half a year and prompted flood walls, reinforced dikes, diversion channels, 24-hour monitoring and emergency drills, underscoring how a different hazard overwhelmed the area anyway.
The latest catastrophe came in a Himalayan border valley where last week's deluge killed more than 900 people along the China-Nepal frontier.