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Associated Press

The Himalayan village of Samjung did not die in a day.
Perched in a wind-carved valley in Nepal’s Upper Mustang, more than 4,000 meters (13,000 feet) above sea level, the Buddhist village lived by slow, deliberate rhythms – herding yaks and sheep and harvesting barley under sheer ochre cliffs honeycombed with “sky caves” – 2,000-year-old chambers used for ancestral burials, meditation and shelter.
Then the water dried up. Snow-capped mountains turned brown and barren as, year after year, snowfall declined. Springs and canals vanished and when it did rain, the water came all at once, flooding fields and melting away the mud homes.
Families left one by one, leaving the skeletal remains of a community transformed by climate change: crumbling mud homes, cracked terraces and unkempt shrines.

The Hindu Kush and Himalayan mountain regions – stretching from Afghanistan to Myanmar – hold more ice than anywhere else outside the Arctic and Antarctic.
Their glaciers feed major rivers that support 240 million people in the mountains – and 1.65 billion more downstream.
Such high-altitude areas are warming faster than lowlands. Glaciers are retreating and permafrost areas are thawing as snowfall becomes scarcer and more erratic, according to the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (Icmod).
Kunga Gurung is among many in the high Himalayas already living through the irreversible effects of climate change.
“We moved because there was no water. We need water to drink and to farm. But there is none there. Three streams, and all three dried up,” said Gurung, 54.

Climate change was quietly reshaping where people can live and work by disrupting farming, water access and weather patterns, said Neil Adger, a professor of human geography at the University of Exeter.
In places like Mustang, that is making life harder, even if people do not always say climate change is why they moved. “On an everyday basis, the changing weather patterns … it’s actually affecting the ability of people to live in particular places,” Adger said.
Moving with the change
Around the globe, extreme weather due to climate change is forcing communities to move, whether it is powerful tropical storms in the Philippines and Honduras, drought in Somalia or forest fires in the US.
In the world’s highest mountains, Samjung was not the only community to have to start over, said Amina Maharjan, a migration specialist at Icmod. Some villages move only short distances, but inevitably the key driver is a lack of water.
“The water scarcity is getting chronic,” she said.
The water scarcity is getting chronic
Amina Maharjan, a migration specialist
Retreating glaciers – rivers of ice shrinking back as the world warms – are the most tangible and direct evidence of climate change.
Up to 80 per cent of the glacier volume in the Hindu Kush and Himalayas could vanish in this century if greenhouse gas emissions were not drastically cut, a 2023 report warned.
It has not snowed in Upper Mustang for nearly three years, a dire blow for those living and farming in high-altitude villages.

Snowfall traditionally sets the seasonal calendar, determining when crops of barley, buckwheat and potatoes are planted and affecting the health of grazing livestock.
“It is critically important,” Maharjan said.
For Samjung, the drought and mounting losses began around the turn of the century. Traditional mud homes built for a dry, cold mountain climate fell apart as monsoon rains grew more intense – a shift scientists link to climate change.
The region’s steep slopes and narrow valleys funnelled water into flash floods that destroyed homes and farmland, triggering a wave of migration that began a decade ago.
Moving a village – even one with fewer than 100 residents like Samjung – was no simple endeavour.
They needed reliable access to water and nearby communities for support during disasters. Relocating closer to winding mountain roads would allow villagers to market their crops and benefit from growing tourism.
Eventually, the king of Mustang, who still owns large tracts of land in the area nearly two decades after Nepal abolished its monarchy, provided suitable land for a new village.
Pemba Gurung, 18, and her sister Toshi Lama Gurung, 22, do not remember much about the move from their old village. But they remember how hard it was to start over.

Families spent years gathering materials to build new mud homes with bright tin roofs on the banks of the glacial Kali Gandaki River, nearly 15km (9 miles) away. They constructed shelters for livestock and canals to bring water to their homes. Only then could they move.
Some villagers still herd sheep and yak, but life is a bit different in New Samjung, which is close to Lo Manthang, a medieval walled city cut off from the world until 1992, when foreigners were first allowed to visit.
It is a hub for pilgrims and tourists who want to trek in the high mountains and explore its ancient Buddhist culture, so some villagers work in tourism.
The sisters Pemba and Toshi are grateful not to have to spend hours fetching water every day. But they miss their old home.
“It is the place of our origin. We wish to go back. But I don’t think it will ever be possible,” Toshi said.


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Nepalese villagers flow into new settlement after water dries up

Villagers walk towards a field to plant apple trees in the newly relocated settlement of the abandoned Samjung village on April 18.  Photo: AP

The abandoned village of Samjung, with ancient caves carved in the cliffs in the background. Photo: AP

Kunga Gurung plants an apple tree at the newly relocated settlement of the abandoned Samjung village in the Mustang region. Photo: AP

A dried up water tap in the abandoned village of Samjung. Photo: AP

Tashi Angmo performs her morning prayers with water before collecting it for daily use at the newly relocated settlement of the abandoned Samjung village. Photo: AP

Asia is heating up at double the global rate amid climate crisis, UN warns

A man in Jammu, India, bathes from a roadside water tap on June 15 to cool himself off on a hot summer day. Photo: AP

Passers-by carry parasols to shade themselves from the heat in Tokyo, Japan, in July 2024. Prolonged heatwaves affected East Asia from April to November last year. Photo: Reuters

Farmers water a field in Jinan, Shandong province, China, last year amid a heatwave alert in the drought-hit region. Photo: Reuters

A man wades through monsoon floods in Nepal’s Kavre district in September 2024. Record-breaking rains killed 246 people and caused losses estimated at US$94 million. Photo: AFP

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People walk amid scorching heat in Tokyo’s Ginza district on Tuesday. The Japan Meteorological Agency has warned people to take precautions against an early heatwave that has enveloped the nation. Photo: Kyodo

People walk down a street in the Yurakucho district in Tokyo, where temperatures topped 34 degrees Celsius on Wednesday. Photo: AFP

People rest in the shade in Kagoshima on Tuesday, as the scorching sun hits the southwestern Japan city with the mercury topping 33 degrees. Photo: Kyodo

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A car lies partially submerged as it wades through a flooded street after heavy rain showers in Mumbai on May 26. Photo: AFP

A man carries a mattress as he wades through floodwaters. Photo: AFP

India’s farming crisis deepens as climate change fuels rise in farmer suicides

Shaikh Imran shows a photo of his brother Shaikh Latif Sheru, a farmer who committed suicide due to mounting financial loans. Photo: AFP

Mirabai Khindkar’s husband, Amol Sanjivan Khindkar, took his own life due to mounting financial loans. Photo: AFP

Balaji Sanjivan Khindkar holds a photo of his late brother Amol Sanjivan Khindkarat, who died by suicide. Photo: AFP

People walk across the dried-up Godavari River in India’s Maharashtra state. Photo: AFP

Shaikh Imran, whose brother Shaikh Latif Sheru, a farmer who took his own life due to mounting financial loans, collects dried-up cotton plants in India’s Maharashtra state. Photo: AFP

‘Unsustainable’: Swiss Alps hits annual glacier tipping point weeks early

Water flows from the melting Rhone Glacier in Switzerland last month. Photo: AP

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Climate change forces an entire Nepalese village to relocate after its vital water sources dry up


Climate change forces an entire Nepalese village to relocate after its vital water sources dry up.


Nepalese villagers flow into new settlement after water dries up

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Climate change forces an entire Nepalese village to relocate after its vital water sources dry up

Climate change forces an entire Nepalese village to relocate after its vital water sources dry up