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Himalayan glaciers losing mass 65% faster
September 14, 2026
A new report finds Himalayan glaciers losing mass 65% faster than a decade ago, after floods in Nepal and Tibet killed more than 1,300 people.
Ice in the Himalayas feeds the rivers that hundreds of millions of people across South Asia rely on for water, and as glaciers pull back they can form lakes penned in by loose rock and ice.
Key facts
- In July the government told parliament that 56 glacial lakes now carry a "very high risk" label, a finding drawn from a 2025 scientific review of 189 lakes already flagged as hazardous across India's Himalayan belt.
- According to the government, 2,485 glacial lakes bigger than 10 hectares are under watch by the Central Water Commission across the Himalayan river basins of India.
- The report puts detailed, sustained monitoring at roughly 21 glaciers out of an estimated 40,000 across the Himalaya-Karakoram region.
- The findings follow floods that devastated Nepal and Tibet, leaving more than 1,300 dead and wrecking property on a wide scale, a sign of mounting danger from a Himalayan environment in rapid flux.
BBC reports the central number: ice across the Himalayas is disappearing 65% faster now than it was ten years ago. The figure comes from the consultancy Systemiq, working with the Integrated Mountain Initiative and drawing technical input from ICIMOD and the GB Pant National Institute of Himalayan Environment. BBC places that finding against the floods that swept Nepal and Tibet, which killed more than 1,300 people. It also carries economist Lord Nicholas Stern, who chairs the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics, calling the range the Third Pole. Reuters puts the mountains near a tipping point with millions of livelihoods on the line, and the South China Morning Post casts the melt as a threat to the water supply of 2 billion people in Asia. All four agree on where the ice is heading and on who stands to lose.
The measurement gap is corroborated, not disputed. BBC reports that roughly 21 of an estimated 40,000 glaciers in the Himalaya Karakoram belt get close, continuous observation. It also reports the government's July statement to parliament that a 2025 assessment of 189 hazardous lakes flagged 56 of them at the highest risk level in the Indian Himalayan region, and that the Central Water Commission tracks 2,485 glacial lakes above 10 hectares in India's Himalayan basins. ICIMOD sets peak water around the middle of this century for most Hindu Kush Himalayan basins, after which runoff falls away as the ice thins.
CNN takes the account into the economy. It reports that a warming climate could push the price of rebuilding to twice what the floods destroyed, and that further flooding makes reconstruction harder still by driving up what resilience, financing and insurance cost in a danger zone that keeps growing. Arushi Chopra, Systemiq's senior director and lead author, says the Himalayas are approaching a tipping point, with millions of lives and livelihoods hanging in the balance. Across the four accounts the pace of ice loss, the flood toll in Nepal and Tibet, and the reach of both into farms, power plants, trade corridors and insurance all hold.
Economist Lord Nicholas Stern, who chairs the London School of Economics' Grantham Research Institute on climate and environmental questions, said: "The Himalayas are the Third Pole,"
Still developing
The number of Himalayan glaciers monitored in detail had not moved as of the draft.
How settled the reporting is
Sources
- BBC — Nepal floods: The Himalayas are melting faster
- CNN — Rich nations are handing Nepal a climate crisis bill it can’t afford
- South China Morning Post — Himalayan ‘glacier bankruptcy’ threatens water security for 2 billion in Asia
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