Perils of climate change: This ancient Himalayan village relocated as water sources run dry

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3 days ago

Perils of climate change: This ancient Himalayan village relocated as water sources run dry
15 Photos . Updated: 09 Jul 2025, 07:07 PM IST
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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.
1/15A signboard points the way to the newly relocated settlement of the abandoned Samjung village in the Mustang region, 462 kilometers (288 miles) west of Kathmandu, Nepal. (AP)
2/15Before water dried up in this Buddhist village, people 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. (AP)
3/15The once 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. (AP)
4/15Families left one by one, leaving the skeletal remains of a community transformed by climate change: crumbling mud homes, cracked terraces and unkempt shrines. (AP)
5/15In Photo: The locked door of a house is seen in the abandoned village of Samjung (AP)
6/15A dirt road through barren mountains, whose downstream was once fed by mighty glaciers of the Hindu Kush and Himalayan mountain regions, leads to the abandoned Samjung village in the Mustang region. (AP)
7/15Such high-altitude areas are warming faster than lowlands. (AP)
8/15According to the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, glaciers are retreating, and permafrost areas are thawing as snowfall becomes scarcer and more erratic. (AP)
9/15Kunga Gurung is among many in the high Himalayas already living through the irreversible effects of climate change. (AP)
10/15'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. (AP)
11/15In Photo: The abandoned village of Samjung, with ancient caves carved in the cliffs in the background, is seen in the Mustang region (AP)
12/15A herd of sheep passes through an alley as they are taken for grazing near the hills at the newly relocated settlement of the abandoned Samjung village in the Mustang region. (AP)
13/15Tashi Angmo, 41, performs her morning prayers with water before collecting it for daily use at the newly relocated settlement of the abandoned Samjung village (AP)
14/15In the world's highest mountains, Samjung isn't the only community to have to start over, said Amina Maharjan, a migration specialist at ICMOD. (AP)