The flash floods decimated villages, slamming into houses, roads, bridges and power plants. Videos on social media show violent torrents of water surging through valleys and mountain passes, tearing down bridges and dams and sweeping away buildings.
Videos circulated online shows a nonstop moving river of earth rising overtaking very tall fortress like buildings, and erasing everything in its path. People looked smaller than ants and it looked like an apocalyptic event.
Nepal's mountainous terrain, dotted with deep valleys and narrow gorges, makes rescue and relief operations challenging. The flash flood was caused by an earthquake that triggered a large landslide, which blocked the Bhote Koshi River. But the US Geological Survey, which studies earthquakes, has now said that further analysis indicates "that the seismic energy was instead generated by a landslide" by itself Landslides or avalanches can have various triggers. One possibility is that water - either from rainfall or melting ice - may have destabilized the ground or ice Major hydropower and transmission facilities were also damaged in the flooding.
