Nepal: In the shadow of a glacier

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1:12This is one of the remotest corners of Nepal, right on the country's northwestern border with Tibet. It's taken four days to get here from Kathmandu, and today I've been driven for eight hours along rough, rocky tracks, through deep river valleys framed by towering Himalayan peaks and over a literally breathtaking 5 ,000-metre pass. I'm now on the Nepalese part of the Tibetan plateau, the roof of the world.

1:44Just passing a herd of about 10 yaks, a few of them are galloping past us with their shaggy tails stuck straight in the air. They've got these magnificent horns, big muscular creatures.

1:58I'm on my way to the village of Halji, an isolated mountain community that's home to one of Nepal's oldest Buddhist monasteries. But the reason I'm going is because the village faces an existential threat from a melting glacier, something that's never felt more relevant given the devastating floods that happened to the east of here just a week ago. Now whilst the scale of those floods was unprecedented, rising temperatures are destabilising the landscape across the high mountains of Asia. So what's the future for Himalayan communities like Halji?

2:38I'm Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent and welcome to Crossing Continents.

2:56When the flood came in 2011, it was big, very big. We were really scared. Houses were swept away. Two of them were taken by the flood just down there. There were also five or six water mills along this river where we would grind barley, and they were swept away too. And The water came very close to the monastery. Everyone was terrified. Thank God the flood came during the day. If it had come during the night, I'm not sure what would have happened. Paljo Tamang, a slight man of about 50, is the ward chair and head man of Halji, one of the three villages in the Limi Valley. He's standing beside the fast-flowing Halji River, which plunges down a steep-walled valley right past the village's 70 or so rough stone houses.

3:44There's no escape from nature here. Hauji sits in a small green valley collared by forbidding 5 ,000-metre peaks, their flanks raked by landslides. And at the far end of the valley, past fields dotted with pink and white wildflowers, the Hauji joins the larger Humla Khanali River. As a boy, Paljol remembers being able to see a glacier in the mountains just above the village, but now it's disappeared from view. and the more the glaciers melted, the more frequent the floods have become.

4:19When the big floods came for the first time, I went up the mountain myself with two other guys to see what might be causing it. We were quite daring. We were young then. We followed the flooding river up the mountain, looking for the source. It was really tough. We knew it could die if we slipped and were taken by the river, but we were able to get to the top and take a few photos. We found there were a cluster of lakes up there, glacial lakes. And when these lakes overflow or when they burst, then the river floods. It becomes a torrent of water and rock. There's no flood warning system for communities in the Limi Valley, but after the first big floods in 2011, the village got some funding from an NGO to build walls along the banks of the river.

5:04It's helped, but everyone knows they're still in a precarious position. Not only are the rivers swollen by glacial meltwater, but warming temperatures are also degrading the permafrost, which acts as a kind of glue binding this landscape together.

5:23There's three things that could happen at any time. First, there are these massive boulders which you see there in the valley. They fall from this side of the mountain and could hit the village at any time. Then over there to the south, there's been recent landslides just beyond the school in the Karnali River. Now these landslides won't hit the village itself, but if one comes down and blocks the Karnali River, it will flood the valley. And three, there is the threat from these glacial lakes in the mountains that might cause a flood at any time. Over the years, I've gone to Kathmandu many times and I've told them we need to build more defences.

6:01but it's probably because we're very far away and don't have enough political power that people don't listen. So to live here is, in a way, to live in a state of constant fear. I'm very scared, but what can you do? In May 2025, a flash flood destroyed a number of houses in the neighbouring community of Till and some families have since abandoned the village. I asked Paldrell whether this and the recent floods in central Nepal have changed people's minds about staying here in Hauji.

6:36There is no immediate change in our thinking, but one day there could be a flood like that here. There's big glacial lakes up there, and the problem is there's a bit of mountain overhanging the lake on the left, and I'm worried that parts of the mountain could collapse into the lake and trigger something like we saw in Rasua, where there's landslide and lots of debris, lots of water, ice and rock comes down. Given all these dangers, where do you stay? What keeps you in Hauji? One is that we don't have the financial resources to move. And the second is the monastery. We rely on it. Because we don't get a lot of support from the state around here, if people get sick, need help, or even when there is a natural disaster, people just go and pray at the monastery.

7:24We believe that will save us.

7:37Dressed in maroon robes and a down jacket, a boyish-faced monk called Kunshok is performing a puja, or ritual, in a shrine room dedicated to the goddess Achi, the protector of the village and this monastery. Sitting cross-legged beside a large drum, he reads from an old Tibetan sutra, a Buddhist text written on rectangular leaves of parchment. To appease Achi, Kunshuk must do this three-hour puja every day. In times of flood, the monks have chanted for days on end. For this is an incredibly special monastery, and every effort needs to be made to save it.

8:18The monastery is built like a fortress. It goes round a central courtyard on all sides of these towering mountains. and it's on multiple levels, each level linked by these very steep ladders. Just stepping over the threshold onto a stone floor to the amazing main shrine room. And it's like walking into a jewel box. Every inch of it is painted and adorned. silk hanging from the ceilings, the walls covered in these ancient fading frescoes blackened by a thousand years of incense and soot and the smell of incense, very thick smell of incense and I'm just walking to the front of the room where there is a magnificent golden statue of a seated buddha-like figure, a god framed by winged figures sitting on horses It is absolutely staggeringly beautiful and it feels so old.

9:24This is one of the oldest surviving monasteries in all of Nepal. So it was built most likely in the 11th century. That's my guide here, Sushan Bhattarai, a researcher working on the impact of climate change on Nepal's highland heritage. This monastery is called the Rinchenling, which takes its name after Rinchen Zangpo. Rinchen Zangpo was a translator monk who lived in the 10th or 11th century, who translated a lot of Sanskrit texts into Tibetan, thus giving him the title Lotzawa, or the Great Translator. And he is said to have built 108 monasteries across the Himalayas, of which this is the 108th.

10:06And isn't it also highly revered in Tibet, because so many monasteries were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution? Yes, so no monastery like this really exists. There are maybe one or two in India, but this is a monastery that has had an unbroken tradition of ritual and worship for the last 1 ,000 years. It's a type of ritual that you're not going to find anywhere else. And the wall paintings and frescoes that you see here have been undisturbed. And all of the statues and sculptures that are here were made here and continue to be here, which is quite rare in the Himalayan world. So this is an irreplaceable cultural treasure that's importance goes way beyond the boundaries of this village or even Nepal.

10:48Yeah, and I think one is the fact that it's been unchanged for about a thousand years and the villagers have continued to protect it. I think the syncretic nature at which this monastery blends with the village, the way in which they are won is something that you don't see anymore in the Himalayas because so many people have moved away. and the fact that the villagers feel such a strong responsibility and the monks will literally come in here at a time of flood I think not just speaks to the age of the monastery but the purpose of this monastery in the village. It's the glue that holds the community together.

11:24Right.

11:28Just walking through Halji's warren of footpaths makes me feel out of breath, as you can probably hear because we're at nearly 4 ,000 metres above sea level here and Hauji's houses, most as old as the monastery, are built cheek to cheek as if the whole community was a single living organism. Prayer flags flutter from flat stone roofs. There's old ladies sitting chatting and spinning their prayer wheels whilst looking after their grandchildren. And the busiest part of Hauji is just outside the monastery where there's a communal tap and occasional mobile reception. What's striking as I walk around the village is how few working-age people there are here.

12:09Hauji seems to be populated by the very old and the very young.

12:19On the top floor of one of Hauji's old stone houses, up two steep ladders, each carved from a single log, Chiring Puti sits on a low bench in a cosy room warmed by a yak-dung-fired stove.

12:47As a child, we would collect firewood and do manual work. It could be hard, but it used to be fun too. But as I've gotten older, the kids are all getting educated, they're leaving the village to seek work or to study. And what worries me is that the younger generation and aren't tied to the village in the same way as we are. And now, too, there are more landslides, there are more floods. People are saying that there's a risk of living here. I don't know what's going to happen in the future. Chiring is 65, her jet black hair reaching in a plait to her waist. She has five children. Most have left to get jobs in nearby Tibet or in Nepal's capital, Kathmandu.

13:28Now she looks after two grandchildren who remain in the village.

13:37When I was a child, the river was just perfect. We used to have a lot of water mills, and the river would power the mills and be used for irrigation. The river would never burst its banks. But then, about 20 years ago, when I was around 45, the river started to become bigger, more powerful. More water came down. My house is quite close to the riverbank, and at times the water has come right up to the walls. I'm worried that one day my home will be swept away, but I don't have the money to move. Chiring knows the melting glaciers are a threat, but as they have no early warning system here, she and the other villagers watch for physical signs of a coming flood.

14:22So whenever there's a lot of sunlight, or whenever the sun is really strong, I'm terrified there will be another flood. And if the colour of the water changes, if it gets murkier, I'll also get really scared because that's sometimes a sign a flood could be on its way so whenever the river looks like it's getting dangerous I run up to my neighbour's house higher in the village but it's really scary when you've got kids with you and the only possession I would take is a special dress that means everything to me so every day I go to the monastery to pray and light a butter lamp in the hope that the floods won't hit my house or hit the village but it's a constant worry.

15:03One day earlier this year, the colour of the water changed. Big boulders started rolling down the river. That sound really terrified me. I thought it was happening again. Why are you so determined to stay here in Halji?

15:21The environment is clean and pure up here. That's one of the reasons. But the main reason is the monastery is here. And that's the main anchor. That's the reason I'm deciding to stay. No matter what happens, the goddess at the monastery always protects us. Last week there were these terrible floods in central Nepal. How does that make you feel about staying here and about the danger of the melting glacier?

15:52So I've seen the videos on social media. We are very similar to Rasuwa. And it's possible a flood like that will eventually come. If that happens, then it will take all of us, or we'll have to run. But where do we run to?

16:11At the far end of the valley, past a giant prayer wheel kept spinning by the flow of water from the village spring, Gleishauji's new school. Built with help from an NGO, it sits beside the Humla Karnali River, shadowed by huge mountains, their peaks veiled in cloud. This morning, 24 children in neat blue tracksuits are lined up for roll call. They sing the national anthem with gusto.

16:40And then march off to class, arms swinging.

16:52The children here are taught in the local language, Limikei. Spoken only in the Limi Valley, it's an archaic form of Tibetan, and this school plays a vital role in preserving it. Tashi Purbu is the English teacher. It is the local language. It is the very old form of Tibetan language. and it is mostly used in the Tibetan scriptures, rather than Tibetan that we speak. So it's not used in modern colloquial Tibetan, it's like an archaic form? Yeah, surely. And how many speakers of Limi K are there left? We have just three villages over here, and they are the only one who speaks. So just the three villages in Limi Valley speak Limi K, and one of those villages is already abandoned, and Til is emptying out.

17:43So really Halji village is like the last bastion of the Limike language. It is so important that in local language, the Limike is preserved over here. It will not be preserved in Tibetan schools. It will not be preserved in Nabal schools, definitely. That's why it is very important to us.

18:06It's exciting. to have a hobby.

18:15Hobbies are lots of fun. You can take photos and build models on planes. They are hobbies for everyone. Can I ask a few other questions? Yes. When you're older, do you have any dreams of what you'd like to be when you grow up? A pilot. A pilot? That's so cool. Doctor. Nurse. To be a nurse, OK. My name is Toshan Juk. I am nine years old. And what would you like to do when you're older? Big llama. Excellent. So you're going to be a big llama and we can all come and get blessings from you.

19:03Although the school is very near the village, some of the children stay during the week. After class I meet Dawa, who manages the school's hostel, and he tells me that even here there's a risk from the changing landscape. Yeah, very recently, just a month ago, I must say during the rainy season, I heard a very loud noise. It sounded like a very big airplane, a military airplane. It was a landslide which was coming from behind the school. And how close to the school did the landslide come? It's just 100 metres away from the school. It just stopped by the riverside. It was very dangerous and scary and the kids were sleeping and then I had to wake up the kids.

19:47It takes time to wake up the kids. It takes time to let the kids rest. Hearing the noise, the village grandmothers rushed across the valley to take the children to safety. We cannot expect how much the damage the nature around us can cause. So, of course, we will definitely feel unsafe. How do you feel about the future of Halji? Do you think people will still be here in 20 or 50 years' time? In my instinct, this village will stay. But then it is so vulnerable.

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