by Samjung, Nepal (AP) – The Himalaya village Samjung does not die in one day.
The Buddhist village lived more than 13,000 feet above sea level in a wind-carved valley in the upper Mustang in Nepal, and lived from slow, deliberate rhythm huts from Yaks and sheep and sheep and harvest barley, with “heavenly pecavating”, with “heavenly peculiarization”, with the help of meditating, with the help of meditating, with the help of meditating, meditating, meditating and Shelschische chambers, which were used with the help of chambers that were used using chambers, and shelter and shelter.
Then the water dried. The snow -covered mountains became brown and barren when the snowfall decreased year after year. Springs and channels disappeared and when it stimulated, the water came at once, flooded fields and melted the mud houses away. Families left the skeletal remains of a community that was changed by climate change: crumbling mud houses, cracked terraces and unkempt shrines.
A changing climate
The mountain regions of Hindu Kush and Himalaya, which extend from Afghanistan to Myanmar – keep more ice than somewhere else outside the Arctic and Antarctic. Her glaciers feed large rivers that support 240 million people in the mountains – and 1.65 billion more downstream.
In the amount of the areas, those heat up faster than lowlands. Glaciers withdraw and permafrost areas Tauen, according to the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development or ICMod, based in Kathmandu, how the snowfall becomes more scarce and unpredictable.
Kunga Gurung belongs to many in the High Himalaya who already have the irreversible effects of climate change.
“We have moved because there was no water. We need water to drink and to the farm. But there are no there. There are three streams and all three have dried out,” said Gurung, 54.
Climate change is quietly redesigned where people can live and work by disturbing agriculture, water access and weather patterns, said Neil Adger, Professor of Humanography at the University of Exeter. In places like Mustang, this makes life more difficult, even if people don’t always say that climate change is moving. “Everyday life, the changing weather pattern … actually affects people’s ability to live in certain places,” said Adger.
Communities forced to move
Around the globe, the extreme weather forces the communities due to climate change, regardless of whether it is mighty tropical storms in the Philippines and Honduras, drought in Somalia or forest fires in California.
In the highest mountains in the world, Samjung is not the only community that has to start all over, said Amina Maharjan, a migration specialist at ICMod. Some villages only move short distances, but the main driver is inevitably a lack of water.
“The water shortage is becoming chronic,” she said.
Tenamous glaciers – rivers of the ice cream, which sink back in the warmth of the world – are the most tangible and direct proof of climate change. A report from 2023 warned up to 80% of the glacier in Hindu -Kush and Himalaya in this century if the greenhouse gas emissions are not drastically cut.
It has no longer snowed in Upper Mustang for almost three years, a bad blow for those who live in high altitude in villages and manage agriculture at great altitude. The snowfall traditionally notes the seasonal calendar and shows when barley, buckwheat and potatoes are planted, and influence the health of the pasture cattle.
“It is of crucial importance,” said Maharjan.
For Samjung, the drought and increasing losses began around the turn of the century. Traditional mud houses that were built for a dry, cold mountain climate fell apart when the monsoon rain became more intense – a shift scientist who is linked to climate change. The steep slopes of the region and the narrow valleys occur in floods that destroyed houses and arable land, which triggered a wave of migration that began a decade ago.
Find a place for a new village
A village – even one with less than 100 inhabitants like Samjung – was not an easy undertaking. They needed reliable access to water and nearby to support during disasters. If you move closer to the angular mountain roads, villagers can market their harvests and benefit from the growing tourism. Finally, the King of Mustang, who still has large country roads almost two decades after the abolition of his monarchy to Nepal, made a suitable country available for a new village.
Pemba Gurung (18) and her sister Toshi Lama Gurung (22) don’t remember the move from their old village. But they remember how difficult it was to start over. Families spent years of making materials to build new mud houses with bright tin roofs on the banks of the glacier cali Gandaki River, almost 15 kilometers away. They built accommodations for cattle and channels to bring water into their houses. Only then could they move.
Some villagers are still healing sheep and yak, but life is different in New Samjung, which is different near Lo Mantha, a medieval, walled city until 1992, near Lo Mantha, a visit to the foreigner. It is a hub for pilgrims and tourists who want to hike in the high mountains and explore their old Buddhist culture, so that some villagers work in tourism.
The sisters Pemba and Toshi are grateful that they don’t have to get water for hours every day. But they miss their old home.
“It is the place of our origin. We want to return. But I don’t think it will ever be possible,” said Toshi.
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