How scientists unraveled the cause of the devastating flood in Tibet and Nepal

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By Hannah Richter, Science. 

Excerpt: Global cooperation revealed a landslide, not a glacial collapse, likely initiated the cascade of events. ...hundreds of scientists around the globe...working tirelessly to piece together the sequence of events that led to the massive flood, which has killed nearly 600 people, left nearly 2000 missing, and destroyed numerous towns and hydropower plants along the Nepal-Tibet border. ...imagery soon led to reports that the explanation was a glacial collapse. ...The mystery could only be fully resolved with cloud-free satellite imagery. And by Wednesday evening, it arrived, both from a satellite operated by the Indian Space Research Organisation and Landsat-9, a joint NASA-USGS satellite. Now, the underlying mountain was visible—and it revealed a huge rock landslide had indeed occurred. “The glacier just came along for the ride,”.... 

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