More than 50 glacier experts, monks, and locals from China, Nepal, India, and Bhutan hiked to the foot of Nepal's Yala Glacier in the Langtang region, over 5000 meters above sea level, to hold a 'funeral' for this rapidly disappearing glacier.
According to a report by China News Service, at the ceremony, people chanted prayers, gave speeches, and placed two granite monuments to mourn the melting glacier. This is Asia's first 'glacier funeral' and the first Asian glacier to have such memorials established. Previously, Iceland's Okjokull and Mexico's Ayoloco glaciers had also been commemorated with monuments after being declared 'dead'.
Yala Glacier is one of the most thoroughly researched glaciers in the Hindu Kush-Himalayan region, and due to global warming, it is currently in an extremely endangered state.
According to data from the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), since its first measurement in the 1970s, the area of Yala Glacier has shrunk by 66%, and its front has retreated by 784 meters. The center predicts that Yala Glacier may become one of the first glaciers in Nepal to be officially declared 'dead'. Other studies predict that the glacier may completely disappear by the 2040s.
The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development was established in 1983, headquartered in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal. It is an international research and knowledge-sharing agency focused on mountain areas, with members including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal, and Pakistan.
The United Nations has designated 2025 as the 'International Year of Glacier Protection', aiming to enhance global awareness of the importance of glaciers and to call on all sectors to pay attention to the profound impacts of their accelerated melting.