The Patagonia town where Nepal’s deadly glacier flood could be repeated – and what they’ve learned
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The disaster already exists on her computer screen: data, models, flood simulations and maps. According to her studies, if the northern slope of Cerro Solo were to collapse into Laguna Torre, at the base of the Torre glacier, a massive volume of water could travel the 5 miles (8km) to El Chaltén in 20 minutes, sweeping along logs, rocks and sediment.
The discharge could reach 1,769 cubic metres (62,472 cubic feet) a second, rushing down the Fitz Roy River towards the town and inundating its only access bridge and other critical infrastructure. For anyone in the valley, those 20 minutes would be the window to reach safety. “It is the worst-case flood scenario,” says Schmidt, adding that, in the most conservative analysis, the flow would take between 45 minutes and an hour to reach the town.
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The threat was already changing how El Chaltén prepared for the future, but the disaster in Nepal has brought these risks to the forefront. Although the scale of that event and the El Chaltén scenario differ, Schmidt sees a similarity in the mechanism: a mass suddenly plunging into a body of water can trigger a flash flood with immense destructive power.
Authorities from Los Glaciares national park and the municipality of El Chaltén, along with local organisations and various scientific institutions, are working to develop the country’s first Glof early-warning system and draft evacuation protocols.
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