Home collapses into Alaskan river after glacial dam burst

A two-storey home in Alaska collapsed into raging waters because the US state grappled with the aftermath of a glacial dam outburst.

Video footage exhibits the home in Alaska’s capital Juneau being swept away by the Mendenhall River.

The waters destroyed no less than two buildings, broken others and ate away at riverbanks over the weekend however began receding on Monday.

There had been no reviews of any accidents or deaths.

Authorities within the metropolis stated they had been working to evaluate how a lot harm had been finished.

Such flooding happens when glaciers soften and pour large quantities of water into close by lakes.

A examine launched earlier this yr discovered such floods pose a danger to about 15 million folks worldwide, greater than half of them in India, Pakistan, Peru and China.

Suicide Basin – a facet basin of the Mendenhall Glacier – has launched water that has brought on occasional flooding alongside the Mendenhall Lake and Mendenhall River since 2011.

However, the utmost water degree within the lake on Saturday night time exceeded the earlier document set in July 2016.

Nicole Ferrin, a warning coordination meteorologist with the US National Weather Service, stated that whereas it isn’t unusual for all these outburst floods to occur, this one was excessive.

“The amount of erosion that happened from the fast-moving water was unprecedented,” she stated.

The Mendenhall Glacier attracts a whole lot of 1000’s of tourists annually however the awe-inspiring glacier continues to recede because the earth warms.