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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees

Nearly 400 Killed, 1,300-plus Missing, Officials: High Risk Dam Could Breach; American Teen, Mother Among Missing After Nepal Flash Flood; Nearly 400 Killed, 1,300 Plus Missing After Catastrophic Nepal- China Flood; Rescue Teams Battle Severe Conditions In Race To Find Survivors; Officials: "High Risk" Dam Could Burst, Cause Second Catastrophe; Nepal PM: 573 Citizens Rescued After Destructive Flood. Aired 8-9p ET

Aired August 27, 2026 - 20:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

Tower: "Marine 1, you said you are proceeding as briefed?"

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BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: The White House says that it is working with the FAA to ensure the President's continued safety.

Thank you so much for joining us tonight AC360 starts now.

[20:00:34]

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, "ANDERSON COOPER: 360": Good evening, we're focusing on the devastation in Nepal tonight, where even as the number of dead and missing climb, there is a high risk tonight of more flooding and possible destruction. We have been getting new images today of what it looked like yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(NEW VIDEO OF FLOOD IN NEPAL-CHINA BORDER.)

(END VIDEO CLIP) COOPER: This is new video from yesterday. A wall of water, glacier

ice, boulders and debris tearing down a steep mountain valley on the Nepal-China border at estimated speeds, averaging 120 miles an hour, slamming into buildings, vehicles, people along the riverside, destroying everything in its path. The fear now centers on the landslide that touched this off. It created a kind of accidental dam upstream, and a lake is now building up behind it.

You can see it at the top center of your screen. The lake is expected to more than double in size in the coming days, and the Chinese government says the dam has a, "high risk of breaching."

Now again, with that as the backdrop, we got more reminders today of just how devastating the first and hopefully only round of this was.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh my God, oh my God.

(Video of the devastating flood.)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: This was taken by someone who was lucky. They were high enough up a hillside as the river roared by taking a small bridge with it just behind them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(UNIDENTIFIED MAN TAKING A VIDEO OF THE FLOOD, SPEAKING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE.)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh my God.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: It is incredible. Other video shows people trapped in a house with raging waters on one side, a sea of mud on the other, deep enough to float a truck.

Yet more new footage captures people fleeing as flood waters enter a village marketplace.

Again, the flood waters, which you can see here, pushing around a boulder the size of a large car as if it were nothing. The water moving so fast with so little warning that thousands simply could not escape in time. Rescue crews are now battling the very conditions the flooding created.

Entire villages buried in mud, roads in and out, cut off. This video is from the Nepalese Army as they try to work to rescue survivors. Authorities say nearly 400 people have been killed, with more than 1,300 still missing. At least 700 of them from two dozen countries around the world, including 90 Americans who are known to be unaccounted for tonight. There's a lot to get to over this hour. Those numbers almost certainly will change in the death toll climb. It is certainly a difficult night. CNN's Hanako Montgomery managed to spend some time in the flood zone today. She joins us now from the capital, Kathmandu.

Hanako, what have you been able to see in the affected areas?

HANAKO MONTGOMERY, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Anderson, on Thursday evening, local time, we were trying to go up a road that leads to the worst affected areas high up in the Himalayan Mountains. But because that road was so badly damaged due to the mud and the debris that the flood water was bringing in, we could only get so far. But even those villages downstream, I mean, the devastation we were seeing was completely catastrophic.

Homes submerged in mud, water, windows and doors completely broken. I mean, those homes are completely unlivable now. We saw one gas station also totally inaccessible as there was mud a couple of feet high. I mean, that is just how much mud this floodwater has been brought in. And we were speaking to some locals there in those villages. And they told us that because there's been no power, no electricity, it's been really, really difficult to speak to their loved ones and to see if they're alive.

We actually spoke to one local mayor who said that he had no idea how many people in his village were dead or alive, because again, it's just been that difficult to get any information, Anderson. And you can only imagine that the further up you go up those Himalayan Mountains, the devastation, the harrowing stories of survivors just gets worse and worse, Anderson.

[20:05:32]

COOPER: What's the status of search and rescue efforts? I mean, are there enough people working on this? Are helicopters what is it like?

MONTGOMERY: Yes, Anderson, the Prime Minister Balendra Shah has ordered an all-out effort to find the remaining survivors and get them assistance. And actually, were in front of the Kathmandu domestic terminal. We're at the airport right now, where, just yesterday we saw a lot of military choppers, helicopters and flights delivering aid to those Himalayan Mountains.

They were getting supplies from international aid organizations like USAID. Those helicopters were also bringing survivors back to the capital who might need medical assistance. And actually, this area right here, it was becoming a hub for family members to get more information, to see if their loved ones might be on those helicopters. But, Anderson, some of the rescue efforts have been hampered due to the potential second flooding that we might see if that dam burst. We also are seeing, of course, forecast for rain over the next couple of hours and days. That could also hamper efforts.

So right now, what we're hearing on the ground from our sources is that people are rushing to get as many survivors out as possible as the sky is still clear. And then again, of course, once that rain comes and potentially that second flood surge happens, of course, we might see a potentially a second, very, very devastating state of events -- Anderson.

COOPER: More now with -- I appreciate it, thank you so much. More now on what is happening in Nepal. Tashi Bista is a filmmaker who lives there and has been flying thermal drones since the disaster happened. To get an aerial view of the destruction, he joins me now.

Tashi, thank you so much for being with us. What did you see with your drones?

TASHI BISTA, FILMMAKER: Hi, Anderson, so on Thursday, I was invited by the government to go to these worst affected areas. So, what we saw is that there was a build-up of mud and debris on either side of the riverbank, and the worst hit area, that is the first town called Timure, right at the border with China. We could see that the entire town had been wiped away. There were only just a handful of houses remaining that were on the slopes up from the main towns.

So, we saw that the entire town had been swept away. We looked for any signs of survivors on the riverbanks to see if the infrared cameras could detect any heat sensing, and we didn't get lucky with that because also because the rocks were glowing together. So, it was difficult to tell. But then we helped them with mapping the entire area to get an idea of the destruction.

COOPER: The, the hope is, is these thermal imaging with these drones, you might actually be able to help locate survivors on, on through thermal imaging, is that correct? How does that work?

BISTA: That is very correct. So, the thermal drone detects heat sense. It has sensors that detect any kind of heat signals in the area, right. So, we usually use it for wildlife filming. But then on this mission, we went and scouted the first five kilometers of the riverbank to see if there were any survivors.

And I think because a lot of mud and debris was covered through the whole riverbank, we didn't get any signal. We only saw glowing rocks that were still retaining some heat from the day. And so, we didn't get lucky with that. But then we focused the rest of the trip on mapping the entire river to see the scale of the infrastructural damage.

COOPER: And how are current weather conditions impacting, you know, the drones ability to, to fly? Obviously, helicopters, any kind of rescue missions.

BISTA: The weather conditions were quite challenging because we got there around 3:30 in the afternoon, on Thursday, the day after the flood. So, there was a lot of rain, but the drones are fairly weather sealed. They're not completely waterproof, but we still flew them for two hours into the rain. And then the helicopters were coming back and forth.

So, we were, as if doing our own air traffic control manually. So, we had to, in some cases, we could reach helicopters and the helicopters had to have a device that they can switch on so that you can see the helicopters on the drone in terms of distance and altitude.

So, we had to coordinate in that way and we had to also work with the Army to maintain that all helicopters fly at a certain height, and then the drones fly all the way down at the river basin at a certain height. So, it was quite tricky because of weather and it was quite limiting. We could only take off every now and then because of weather and helicopters, there's too many helicopter flights in the area.

[20:10:13]

COOPER: This is a dumb question, but you can see thermal imaging during the day with these drones, and are you seeing it in real time on a monitor or is it something you can only see afterward?

BISTA: Yes, so we are seeing real images live on the monitor. The feed is just happening as it is on the monitor. There's almost no lag. And so, of course, it's better during the evenings and at night, definitely, especially when there's less heat in the area when less, the hills, slopes and the ridges and the rocks are not as glowing, right. So, you pick up heat sensors from living beings easy. But, at daytime, it's more challenging because you have -- everything else is glowing. Everything else that has retained, that's getting heated up by the sun is glowing. So, it's mostly easier at night, but we had to mostly fly during the day.

COOPER: And how far can you detect if somebody, I mean, if somebody is alive in debris or in a, you know, on a hillside, uh, how far away can you actually detect them? How close do you have to be?

BISTA: So, the drones themselves can fly, as far as five kilometers. The range says it can fly as far as ten kilometers from where the operator is. And depending on how much visibility you have to the drone, it can descend down or go to the impacted area. Let's say two to three meters above the ground, right? But that depends on whether you have a direct line of sight or not.

So, in this case, we're, we flew their own helicopters. We're landing on different ridgelines that we thought would have better access on both sides. So we were, we would land at one spot, wed fly five kilometers to either sides north and south of the river, and then we'd go as low as ten meters. But they also have very powerful zooms. So, you can really even from ten meters above the ground, you can really zoom, uh, like let's say seven times, ten times onto the ground and really pick up heat signals. The images start breaking, but you can detect movement.

So, we tried the first five kilometers from the border town of Timure and to southwards and because of limited time and challenging weather and too much helicopter movement, we had very limited time to actually do a proper search.

But we did do a proper search in this area and did not see any signs.

COOPER: Well, Tashi Bista, I appreciate what you're doing and I wish you the best in the days ahead, thank you. Also tonight, we are looking closer at the possibility of additional flooding in the coming days, as we mentioned, and the larger climate changes that could make disasters like this one more common.

Also, my conversation with an American doctor whose parents had traveled to the region for a Hindu pilgrimage and are now unaccounted for, along with their entire tour group. We'll talk to her ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:17:18]

COOPER: Welcome back.

We're covering the disaster in Nepal. New video o on social media showing the deadly wall of water tearing through villages on Wednesday. Tonight, officials say the death toll has risen to almost 400 and more than 1,300 others are missing. That includes, according to the State Department, 90 Americans.

Now, yesterday, the State Department said it had pledged $500,000.00 to relief efforts. It also says it is deploying a disaster response advisor to the region. Here's what President Trump said about it today.

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DONALD TRUMP (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We've called Nepal, and we've offered any help that they need. You know, we have a very good relationship with Nepal and that was a brutal, that wasn't just -- that was mud and water as a mixture. Nobody's ever seen anything quite like that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: He also said he did not expect that every unaccounted for American would be found alive. CNN's Will Ripley has more on the missing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WILL RIPLEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): This is New Yorker Raashi Shashiran (ph) enjoying her vacation in Nepal. The 14-year-old and her mother, Rekha, have been missing since a catastrophic flash flood hit the Nepal-China border destroying villages and infrastructure on Wednesday.

They are just two of several missing Americans and hundreds of foreign nationals among the thousands missing since the disaster struck. The eighth grader and her mom spent a few days in Nepal's capital, Kathmandu, getting used to the high altitude before heading off on a Hindu pilgrimage with a group tour in the now impacted region.

SHEKHAR AGRAWAL, BROTHER/UNCLE OF MISSING AMERICANS: UNCLE: This is Rashi enjoying her temple visit. RIPLEY: Rashi's uncle, Shekhar Agrawal told CNN in an interview in Mumbai. He feels helpless as he searches for information and tries to find them.

AGRAWAL: This is the crucial golden hour, basically. I believe these two or three days quick action needs to be taken by the government and some information proactively needs to be exchanged with the people.

RIPLEY (voice over): He last spoke to his sister at 7:30 A.M. local time on Wednesday. They were at Rasuwagadhi in the Rasuwa District on the Nepal-China border. They were planning to go to the immigration checkpoint at the Chinese border post at 12:00 P.M., then the flash flood happened.

AGRAWAL: Nine o'clock this event happened. She was supposed to go to the embassy, the crossing at 12:00, the bridge that got swept away. So, she was supposed to travel on that bridge. So, I believe she must be in the hotel.

RIPLEY (voice over): Surveillance footage from the Chinese border post showed a mountain of mud and water taller than the building, crashing down and wiping out everything in its path.

Despite the shocking images emerging from the region, Rashi's uncle remains hopeful.

AGRAWAL: Well, we are hoping for the best because these kinds of things have happened earlier also, and we have seen cases wherein people have walked after three days, four days, five days. So right now, the only thing that you can do is be hopeful.

RIPLEY (voice over): The images coming out of this devastated region are hard to comprehend, and the death toll will undoubtedly rise. Hundreds of people have so far been confirmed dead, while rescuers have been filmed pulling mud covered survivors from the debris. The race to find so many more continues.

Will Ripley, CNN, Kathmandu.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[20:20:47]

COOPER: Well, among the many more are Ramesh and Neelam Sharma from New York. The couple was on a religious pilgrimage with a tour group and had just crossed the border from Nepal into China when the destructive wall of water, glacier ice and debris hit the area.

I spoke with their daughter and son, Radhika and Akanksha Sharma just before air.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Dr. Sharma, thank you so much for speaking with us. I know your brother Akash is there for support and I'm glad you guys are together. I'm so sorry for what your family is going through right now. When was the last time you had contact with your parents? Have you had any word about them?

DR. RADHIKA SHARMA, PARENTS MISSING AFTER FLOOD. First of all, we really appreciate you sitting down and talking with us because we want to get the word out, and we ultimately want them to be brought home. The last time we heard of them, heard from them was Wednesday morning at 8:00 A.M. They were at the border and we believe that it was confirmed that they had crossed the border to the Tibet side. And this was about an hour before the floods occurred in that area.

COOPER: And you've heard that through, is that through the tour agency that they were with?

SHARMA: Yes. So, we've heard that through the tour agency manager. He's based in Kathmandu, and he had really close contact with the three tour guides that were with my parents and their group. But after that period, they have not been able to contact them at all.

COOPER: And I know, you're hopeful that they crossed over to the Tibet side. Is that because it seems like the damage was more on the Nepalese side?

SHARMA: Well, were hoping because I think one of the last things that was told to the tour agency manager was that they had successfully crossed the border, Other than that, I don't know.

I know the Nepalese side unfortunately has like feared the worst part of the destruction. I don't know. We, we really hope that they made it through the Tibet side.

COOPER: And I know obviously you are desperate for information from government officials, rescue workers, anyone with contacts at hospitals in the reg ion, anyone who may have been in a different tour group and seen anything. Have you been able to contact other people whose loved ones are on the tour as well to kind of compare notes?

SHARMA: Yes, so, I this morning, well, last night I posted my parents information and their pictures on social media in the hopes that I could just get the word out. And if somebody saw them on the ground, they would be able to reach out to me. I haven't been able to locate them, but what I have kind of have received is just like a community, a huge community of people who, like in the United States, they're just like my brother and I, they are children, family members of aunts and uncles, parents who are on this pilgrimage and who they've contact with.

I've made a WhatsApp group. We're trying to slowly get more of the people, especially in the United States, into that group so that if we get information from the community on the ground, we can share it with each other. It just makes the whole process a little bit more bearable, if that makes sense, so yes.

COOPER: And I understand you and your brother are intent to head to Nepal tomorrow. Do you have a sense of what you'll do when you get there?

Obviously, this is a situation nobody can prepare for. SHARMA: Yes. So, we are going to try our best and just get more information. I feel like if we can just get any more information, talk to more people in Nepal, we can maybe just get a better sense of things.

[20:25:10]

My plan is to first go to the embassies, talk to them and then from there, maybe go to the different hospitals, try to figure out which hospitals have had or treating patients that are rescued from that area. Try to see if I can find my parents and then try to talk to, you know, anyone who will talk to me like the police, the Red Cross, anyone I can get information from really? Because I know that information is going to be really valuable especially getting it right there, like in real time from the ground. So that yes --

COOPER: Can you tell us about your parents? What was -- this was a religious pilgrimage?

SHARMA: So my parents are, they live in New York City. They are U.S. citizens. They've lived there for the last 30 years. We are both born and raised in New York City.

They are really hardworking, down to earth people. They put both of us through college. They put me through medical school. They just retired a year ago, and finally, after all the work that they put in with us, they were -- and we kind of pushed them to go live your life, go travel. And they are pretty religious.

And so they had been exploring and researching this religious pilgrimage to Mount Kailash, which is really, really special to a lot of Hindus. It is the home of Lord Shiva. So, one of their friends who is actually in the group with them, who is lost as well, she had done this tour many times and so they were going with her and the tour group that she trusted.

We just didn't realize that this was going to happen and our world was going to turn upside down.

COOPER: Yes. Well, Radhika and Akash, I wish you the best and I hope you get information soon and quickly. And I hope somebody sees this and has some information and I am sure, I will be praying for you and a lot of people as well. Thank you so much.

AKANKSHA SHARMA, PARENTS MISSING FROM FLOOD: Thank you.

SHARMA: Thank you so much. And if our parents are watching, somehow we love you and we want you to come home and we hope to bring you home. And we know that you're worried about us probably more than you're worried about yourself, because that's just the type of people that they are.

We really miss you and we really love you. So I hope that we can find you soon.

COOPER: Radhika and Akash, thank you. SHARMA: Thank you.

A. SHARMA: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Much more ahead tonight. Next best-selling author, Jon Krakauer, who has written extensively about the region, how the influx of tourists and commercialism has altered it, and the impact natural disasters and climate change have had.

Later, more on the role climate change may have played in the disaster and the possible trouble yet to come.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:30:19]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh my God! Oh my God!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[20:32:43]

COOPER: The death toll in Nepal now at least 389 people and expected to climb. The water in a barrier lake formed by the glacier's collapse, landslide that's believed to have touched this all off, now stands at an estimated 528 million gallons and climbing. All of which could break through the mud and rocks holding it back right now and cause yet more flooding and destruction. Chinese authorities say there is a high risk of it happening.

Joining us now is journalist and author Jon Krakauer, whose book, "Into Thin Air", was a remarkable account of a natural and human disaster in the Himalayas on a climb up Mount Everest. Jon, thanks for being with us. I'm sorry it's under these circumstances.

When you, first of all, you see these images, you know this region, what goes through your mind?

JON KRAKAUER, AUTHOR, "INTO THIN AIR": It's horror, it's horrifying. I mean, it's absolutely horrifying to see the scale and the speed. This was a remarkable event and it does not bode well for not only finding survivors, but for rebuilding this area in the future.

This was -- it wiped out the Friendship Bridge, which got wiped out a year ago in a much smaller flood. But this area is only one of two, you know, important ways to get into China from Nepal to get into Tibet. And the fact that it's going to take a long time to rebuild the roads. I mean, more than 20 miles of roads were wiped out.

So this is going to have a lasting impact. The immediate aftermath is horrifying in trying to rescue people. But the long-term effects for people who work in Nepal and know what lies ahead is really discouraging. What it's going to take to come back from this.

COOPER: You've written extensively about the climb of Mount Everest and how that's changed in the 30 -- you know, over the 30 years since you climbed it. How specifically has Nepal as a whole changed in that time?

KRAKAUER: Not for the better. It's more corrupt. It has greater problems. The government has failed over and over again from the Maoists. I mean, and last year, there was another election, very optimistic. Young people, Gen Z, they called themselves, the political movement, elected a young, promising engineer rapper who promised reform. And it looks like this is going to be another failed government. He is not living up to the expectations.

[20:35:08]

So, I mean, there's so many problems in this country. And the government is so dysfunctional. It's -- you know, Nepalese have a spirit. They have this saying, "ke garne." It's sort of, you know, whatever, we deal with it. And it's too bad that they have to have that. But they've got it at least. So they'll keep trying.

But this is going to be -- this is bad. This is -- this reminds me of the 2015 earthquake that killed about 9,000 people and left 600,000 people homeless. I don't think this -- I hope not, it'll be those kind of numbers, but looking at these videos just makes me sick to my stomach.

COOPER: Is there anything people could have done to prepare for something like this?

KRAKAUER: Well, yes --

COOPER: (INAUDIBLE) seeing more to these kind of things?

KRAKAUER: Yes, they could take climate change seriously. The climate is warming faster in the Himalaya than other places. But it's warming a lot of places faster than was thought. And the business in Mount Everest is climbing Mount Everest, which is a huge business in Nepal.

You know, 1,000 people more or less climbed Everest last year. It's a multi-million dollar industry. And it is now threatened because the carapace of ice, the ice and snow that covers the Mount Everest massif is melting. It's melting alarmingly fast. And it's making the most dangerous part of the climb from Nepal's side really dangerous.

The Khumbu Icefall is now disintegrating. And last year, it was closed for a long period of time because huge towers of ice were in danger of collapsing. That's only going to get worse. And there's serious thought -- serious talk now of having to close that icefall altogether and find another route up the Nepal side of the mountain, which would be difficult.

So, yes, it's -- climate change is bad for everybody. And the Chinese side of the mountain is closed now. It'll be closed next summer. China is really mercurial. You never know. You can't count on being able to climb Everest from that side. I mean, climbing at moments like this seems just, it's so unimportant.

I mean, this is so much more important than, you know, whether climbers can climb Mount Everest or not. That's just -- that --

COOPER: Yes.

KRAKAUER: -- falls by the wayside.

COOPER: Well, Jon, I appreciate you joining us. And if folks would like to contribute to disaster relief in Nepal through the American Himalayan Foundation, which Jon is involved with, go to himalayan- foundation.org/donate/crisis-response. It's up there on the screen.

Up next to Jon's point, more on the earth science behind this disaster and insight on the biggest challenges ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:41:57]

COOPER: Well, the glacier collapse that's believed to have caused, in part, this immense destruction, this wall of rock, ice and water you're seeing on your screen was so large that it was originally thought to be seismic activity. The impact registered with the equivalent of a 5.2 magnitude earthquake.

Scientists tell CNN that although it's too early to tell what role climate change may have played in this particular glacier's collapse, the Himalayas are part of a rapidly warming region, as Jon Krakauer just talked about, which is home to thousands of glaciers.

Joining me now is Ben Ayers, he's a -- Ayers -- he's a journalist with Outside Magazine who's been based in Nepal for more than 20 years. He's co-host of the "Everest Live" podcast. Austin Lord, who is senior fellow at Stimson Center. His research focuses on disaster and climate risk management. And Alton Byers, who's a faculty research scientist with the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado at Boulders.

Austin, you know the area that's been devastated. What goes through your mind? What happened here?

AUSTIN LORD, SENIOR FELLOW, STIMSON CENTER: So this is a horrifying event, as many of the speakers have already indicated. For me, I've spent a lot of time in this particular region over the last 12 years. So seeing the images, what goes through my mind is layered, to be honest. A variety of professional orientations to understanding the cascading hazard impacts, but also the local impacts is terrifying. And I know a lot of people have been impacted.

But what happened here, as you know, and I think you've discussed a bit in previous conversations, is a large-scale glacial collapse on the north side of the Langtang Range. Then fell down and impounded or blocked the river at the Lende Khola. And then that created a dam that backed up over a period of time that then burst out in a rapid outburst flood -- a lake outburst flood of that dam that then swept down and impacted the Chinese border and a variety of settlements below in Rasuwa District, where I've spent, again, a lot of time.

The process is a different variation of a cascading hazard chain. We've had several events in the last few years across the Himalayan region that have had different combinations or different interactions between hazards in sequence and high elevation regions. The mountain cryosphere or the frozen world, things are destabilizing quickly and there's all kinds of slope failures and detachments that can then trigger these long run-out extreme flow events.

What you're seeing on the screen is the deposit at the bottom of this, the first phase of this event, where this glacial detachment led to an avalanche or a landslide that blocked the river entirely. And here you're seeing the deposit that remains there in the river and a small lake that's formed in the river and the deposit itself.

COOPER: And Alton, I understand you're set to go to a different part of Nepal next month to try to help develop plans for community preparedness and glacier hazard management. What would it have taken, if anything, to have seen something like this coming? Is that possible?

ALTON BYERS, INSTITUTE OF ARCTIC AND ALPINE RESEARCH, UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO AT BOULDER: I don't think it's possible to predict or see something like this coming. There's no sort of early warning system that we know of.

[20:45:07]

Now you can identify areas that are high risk through remote sensing that have overhanging ice and would be at risk of a similar event. But it's unlike a glacial lake which is there and you can see it and you can put an early warning system in. These are almost impossible to predict.

COOPER: Ben, you said this isn't a once every 100-year event. It's more like a once every thousand years. Do you think there'll be more of these given the impact of climate change, particularly in the Himalayas?

BEN AYERS, JOURNALIST: Yes, I mean, you know, that whole adage of like 100-year flood isn't to say it's predictable once every hundred years. It means that that's about the likelihood given traditional modeling. But as we see the climate warm, you know, the effects of climate change are going to impact places like Nepal, places in the Himalaya that have newer, more fragile ecosystems or more fragile geographies, much, much, you know, exponentially more than they will in a place like North America.

So what we're seeing is what, you know, this thousand year event may well be a decade event. Like this is -- we're kind of on the frontier here of the way that climate is going to impact the cryosphere and the way that, you know, these sensitive, you know, ever-changing geographical areas are going to react to a warming climate.

So I think that, you know, these kinds of events are probably something we will see much more of in our lifetime. And as Austin mentioned, this isn't the first time that this has happened. Last year in this very same river, in this very same area, there was another massive flooding event that killed 18 people. This is something that's become very regular in Nepal, unfortunately, and in the surrounding areas.

COOPER: And Austin, do you agree with that? And how concerning is this other massing of water that Chinese authorities and others are watching?

LORD: Yes, I agree with that completely. The basic idea is that climate risks are evolving faster than we can keep up with them. There's been a number of events in just the last five years alone, extreme flow events similar to this with different cascading hazard chains that have proven that we often don't know where to look.

As Alton said, if you know where to look, it's much easier to implement a monitoring process and build something that can generate an early warning perhaps. But here, a dozen of the last 15 events have come from places that sort of blindsided us. So climate risks are evolving faster and overwhelming our existing plans and introducing new levels of uncertainty beyond which we haven't seen before. So we're learning from every single event.

To the second part of your question about this -- about the current state of these lakes, the lakes that are formed in the flow path of the initial event, of the main event, have been changing and growing in dimensions over the last 24 hours. They are much smaller, I should say.

There's one on the river itself that we saw and there's one further up just below the fracture in the glacier that was formed. They're between -- each of them is about a 10th of a square kilometer. They're growing in volume, but they are not significant in -- they're not insignificant, but they're not to the extent if they failed that they could trigger an event on the scale that we saw.

It's more likely that they would trigger a smaller flood event that would go in the same flow path and that would have much more limited effects. There is a concern for those who are doing search and rescue, for example, and operating in the river corridor itself, trying to recover materials from that corridor. But this is now being monitored much more closely.

The challenge with these lakes is tracking them in the coming days if their weather system arrives and if it comes to the area and the lakes -- the volume behind the lakes, which is difficult to estimate, continues to grow. They could release water, but that water could be released slowly as well as suddenly.

So it's not a -- this morning there was a lot of media coverage and saying it could be bigger than the last one. I think it's fair to say that it would be a more limited flow, even though it would be -- it could be a cascading hazard chain, it would be a smaller one.

COOPER: Well, that's -- I mean, that's a little bit of good news right there. Alton, I mean, I understand there were kind of warning, you know, some sort of warnings, I don't know if it's sirens or signals for flooding, but that they're not prepared for something like this, for a massive breach all at once. Is that correct?

[20:50:05]

BYERS: Yes, absolutely. And one of the things really not being discussed is that you have to realize that if this event happened, if we had this massive detachment of glacial ice and rock, which I think is connected with the degradation of permafrost, even at the highest altitude, that's becoming unstable and that's becoming part of the triggering process.

But if we'd had this event that turned into a flood, OK, a hyper- concentrated slurry or whatever you call it, this would have been called a glacier event, a glacier flood event. When it destroys villages and cities and kills people downstream, it becomes a catastrophic event.

One of the reasons it's a catastrophic event is because of all of that building down in floodplains. Now, Nepal in the last 20 years has undergone massive urbanization, building in areas that are prone, historically prone to flooding. And that's why we're getting these --

COOPER: Yes.

BYERS: -- the massive catastrophic events. So if you look at photographs taken 50 years ago, villages were up higher.

COOPER: Yes. And Alton, I know that's something you are actually working with in communities and warning them about building in areas that have flooded in the past. Alton Byers, appreciate it. We should continue this conversation in the coming days. Ben Ayers, Austin Lord, as well, thank you.

Coming up more on our coverage out of Nepal and the severe conditions search and rescue crews are facing, a look at what we know so far.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:55:46]

COOPER: Quick update on the flooding. According to the Nepali government, 573 people have been rescued from the mud and high waters. More than 1,300 remain unaccounted for. Nearly 400 people have died. The U.N. has emergency teams on the ground, but says that access by road to the worst hit areas is difficult at best.

If you want more information on how you can help, go to CNN.com/impact. Again, CNN.com/impact.

In about 20 minutes at 9:15 p.m. Eastern, I hope you join me online for my streaming show "All There Is Live." It's a companion broadcast to my podcast on loss and grief. To watch it at 9:15 live, just go to CNN.com/AllThereIs or the QR code will take you there.

We've been getting a lot of wonderful voicemails and videos from listeners about what Dolly Parton meant to them. We're going to play some of them tonight on the program at 9:15, but here's a preview.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My name is Tina. When I was five years old, I would act out that song, "Me and Little Andy," and my mom would just laugh. To this day, I have the memory of my mom who I lost four years ago watching me perform "Me and Little Andy." And I think Dolly Parton was the greatest gift.

I hope that she can see how much she meant to so many people. I love that we can all grieve her together.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My name's Autumn (ph). In 2022, when I had an extremely traumatic birth with my first daughter, one of the only songs that I could bring myself to play was Dolly Parton's "Light of a Clear Blue Morning." And then 2023, I'm back in the hospital for a scheduled C-section with Baby Girl number two.

And I gave the nurse my phone and said, here's my playlist. And she just turned it on. And it was just happenstance that "Light of a Clear Blue Morning" was playing the moment the doctor pulled my second sweet baby girl into the world. It's really hard that that light that is Dolly Parton and has been with so many people through some of their worst moments isn't here on Earth with us anymore.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, Anderson. This is Susan Heim (ph). In preschool with my son, Charlie, it was part of her imagination library. He loved getting a new book each month and he loved when I read them to him. After Charlie died last year, I donated some of the books to his school for his classmates to enjoy.

But I kept some of his favorites. Last night, I made a donation to the Imagination Library in memory of Charlie and Dolly. I know Dolly will be missed by everyone.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My mom, Patricia, was a huge Kris Kristofferson fan. She ended every conversation with the phrase, "I love you to the moon and back." So after her death in 2022, I stumbled on a duet that Kris did with Dolly of the song, "From Here to the Moon and Back." And I put that song on repeat in those early days when the grief was just too big.

And I turned to it whenever I need to feel close to mom. So two very special ladies who were both such givers. Rest in peace, Dolly.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My name is Jen McElrath (ph). Losing Dolly connects me to the grief with my father because "Islands in the Stream" was my favorite song. And he would play it on an eight track. It was this gift that I would get anytime he would want to play it.

And then after he passed, it was a gift as well to reconnect me to those times in the car with him. So now that she's passed, the connection is just another moment of grief and gratitude intertwined.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My name is Maura Johnston (ph). And yesterday I was in the Post Office and a guy behind me walked in and said to everyone, Dolly Parton died. And there were probably a dozen or so people in the Post Office and at least half the people burst into tears.

And I thought, you know how some days you wake up and you know, I will remember this day forever. Today, I didn't wear a bra all day because some lady on the internet suggested that we do our boobs at half-staff for Dolly. And I thought, well, I can definitely do that.

I don't know how she got everybody to love her. I think she did the hard work of loving everybody first. And then everybody respected her opinion whether we shared it or not. We have to do the hard work of caring for each other first.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: "All There Is Live" gets underway shortly at 9:15 p.m. You can only see it streaming at CNN.com/AllThereIs. I hope you join me there in 15 minutes.

The news continues. The Source with Kaitlan Collins starts now.