Rapid Fire
Yala Glacier Declared Dead
- 20 May 2025
- 2 min read
The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) held a ceremony to commemorate the rapid retreat of Nepal’s Yala Glacier in Langtang Valley, which is threatened to vanish by 2040 due to climate change.
- This tribute is part of Nepal’s role in the UN International Year for Glaciers Preservation 2025 and part of the inaugural Sagarmatha Sambad (mountain dialogue) summit 2025 by Nepal.
- Yala Glacier: Yala Glacier, situated in Langtang Valley, Nepal, within the Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) region, is the first glacier in Nepal to be declared “dead” as it has shrunk by 66% since the 1970s.
- Glaciers are declared "dead" when they no longer show movement or flow under their own weight.
- It is the first glacier in Asia to bear a climate memorial plaque, with messages in English, Nepali, and Tibetan languages.
- Glaciers: A glacier is a large, long-lasting mass of ice and debris that forms on land and slowly moves downhill due to gravity.
- Glaciers are distributed mainly in Antarctica (91%) and Greenland (8%), with less than 1% in North America, Asia, Europe, Africa, New Zealand, and Indonesia; Australia has none.
- Between 2000 and 2023, glaciers lost 6,542 billion tons of ice, causing an 18 mm rise in global sea levels, exposing an additional 2–3 lakh people to flooding per millimeter rise.
- Glacier melt is the second-largest contributor to sea-level rise after ocean warming.
| Read More: 2025 as International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation |
