EDITORIAL — Glacial collapse

The Nepal-Tibet border is a long way from the Philippines. But the collapse of a glacial mass that turned into a deadly avalanche of water, mud and rocks in the Himalayan region should be a cause for concern in our country.

Not just because a Filipino is among the 1,300 people missing, but also because the apocalyptic wall of water and mud that smashed across the Nepal-Tibet border on Wednesday was blamed on melting glaciers.

This in turn has been blamed on global warming, which has unleashed extreme heat in many parts of the world. In Europe, four back-to-back heatwaves this year have been blamed for 35,000 deaths.

Melting glaciers and warming ocean temperatures have caused rising sea levels that threaten coastal communities and worsen flooding in countries such as the Philippines.

In the past years, climate change has been blamed for the increasing frequency of extreme rainfall and flooding that have hit the Philippines during the monsoon and tropical cyclone season.

This week, several areas in Bulacan and Bataan remain flooded from the continuous heavy rains in the previous days. In parts of the Camanava area, residents contend with regular flooding even during high tide. Those tides are expected to become higher as sea levels rise due to global warming.

Because of the prolonged flooding, hospitals in Metro Manila and other parts of Luzon are swamped with leptospirosis patients. The potentially fatal illness has become one of the ugly consequences of failed flood control.

Experts have tagged the Philippines as one of the countries most vulnerable to the devastating consequences of climate change. Coastal communities in the archipelago of 7,641 islands face an existential threat as polar ice caps and ice sheets melt and sea levels rise. Food security and livelihoods are threatened by changing ocean temperatures.

The cataclysmic glacial collapse in the Nepal-Tibet border is a grim reminder of the urgency of implementing long-term, corruption-free interventions that efficiently keep rising waters where they belong: in the seas, rivers and lakes, and not in the streets and in our homes.