Massive flash floods caused by glacial lake outbursts have devastated Sherpa Tenzing Norgay’s ancestral Thame village in the Everest region of Nepal.

Hurtling down the steep slopes, carrying boulders, debris and muck with them, the flash floods have destroyed more than half the homes in the village in Khumbu Pasang Lhamu Rural Municipality-5. The calamity occurred at 1.30pm (local time) on Friday.

"Thame is my father’s ancestral village. He was raised there. Many of my relatives live in Thame and their houses have been affected by the GLOF (glacial lake outburst flood)," Tenzing’s son Jamling Tenzing Norgay Sherpa told The Telegraph.

Thame, located at 12,740 feet in the Khumbu Valley, is also home to Apa Sherpa who has summited Everest 21 times, Kami Rita Sherpa who holds the world record for most Everest ascents (30), and Lakpa Rita Sherpa who climbed Everest 10 times, the most by any woman.

Jamling said his father was born in Kama Valley in Tibet but spent most of his childhood in Thame. As part of a British expedition, Tenzing was the first to summit Everest along with Sir Edmund Hillary, a New Zealander, on May 29, 1953.

Army officials, civic authorities and scientists confirmed the flash floods were caused by two glacial lake outbursts on Saturday following a helicopter recce.

Glacial lake outburst floods, or GLOF, are a sudden release of water from a lake fed by glacier melt that has formed at the side, in front, within, beneath, or on the surface of a glacier. Experts have warned that global warming poses a major threat to glacial lakes and subsequent GLOFs in the Hindu Kush Himalayan Region.

The municipality has uploaded the video of the recce on its Facebook page. The recce team noticed that two of the five lakes in the upper region of Thame had burst.

“These lakes are situated near the Tashi Lapcha Pass,” said Jamling who apart from undertaking treks in the region also conducts awareness campaigns every year.

“One of the reasons for GLOFs is also due to global warming. It is time to focus more on the environment,” said Jamling who scaled the Everest in 1996.

In 2021, Jamling and his team had cleared around 1,500kg of trash from Tashi Lapcha Pass, Renjo la Pass and Kyajo Ri mountain.

“The focus must be more than just cleaning the mountains. Earlier, too, the Nepal government and the army had mitigated such a calamity by draining off lakes in the mountains. Regular monitoring is needed across the Himalayas,” said Jamling who was in Thame in April.

Although no lives were lost, about 50 per cent of the Thame village has been severely damaged, and the remaining houses are uninhabitable.

“Authorities reported that around 93 villagers who fled to higher altitudes or were rescued are now being sheltered in an army camp, while 42 others have been temporarily placed in a nearby community building,” The Himalayan Times reported.

There were very few people in the village and hardly any tourists as it was off-season.

The Himalayan Times quoted police as saying that a school, a health clinic and 20 houses and hotels were swept away.

A similar GLOF had occurred in Sikkim on the intervening night of October 3 and 4 last year, killing over 100, damaging hundreds of houses and sweeping away the 1200MW Sikkim Urja Teesta-Stage III Dam.

Sikkim chief minister Prem Singh Tamang (Golay) had submitted a post-disaster need assessment report, estimating ₹3,673.25 crore for recovery and reconstruction of the state.

With inputs from PTI