A geological perspective on mountain hazards in a changing world: lessons from the 2026 Nepal–Tibet disaster

Dr Maximillian Van Wyk de Vries is speaking at The Geological Society on Tuesday 24 November, a public lecture he's delivering after winning the Society's 2026 Early Career Geologist Award. He's an Assistant Professor in Natural Hazards at the University of Cambridge and runs the Cambridge Complex and Multihazard Research Group, so this is his area of expertise.

The talk centres on the August 2026 Nepal–Tibet disaster, when a large rock–ice collapse high in the Himalaya triggered a rapidly evolving multihazard cascade across the border. It's a case study he knows from the inside: earlier that month, he'd been in the field with Chinese and Nepali colleagues monitoring cross-border hazards, so he was on the ground before the collapse happened. He builds the lecture around two questions: what is the baseline hazard and risk, and how are they likely to change in the coming decades.

From there, he pulls the Nepal–Tibet disaster into a wider picture. He places it alongside landslides, glaciers, volcanoes and glacial lakes, drawing on examples from Alaskan megatsunamis to Antarctic volcanoes to ask how climate change, landscape evolution and expanding infrastructure are modifying risk in mountain regions. It's a broad look at how these things shift over time, using a very recent disaster as the starting point. The session is held with the Society's Early Career Network.

It's a hybrid event, so you can catch it in person at The Geological Society, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London, W1J 0BG, or online via Zoom if you can't make it into town. The talk runs from 18:00 to 19:00, with doors opening at 17:30 and a drinks reception from 19:00 to 20:00. Entry is free.