China's Hailuogou glacier was deformed dramatically after a magnitude-6.8 earthquake rattled Luding County in the country's Sichuan Province.

The province was hit by the quake on September 5, 2022.

A large range of continuous deformation was detected in the Hailuogou glacier, covering an area about 2 square kilometers and a displacement of 30 meters at most, according to the result obtained by Li Weile, a professor of the State Key Laboratory of Geohazard Prevention and Geo-environment Protection, Chengdu University of Technology.

The data, emphasized Li, can be only taken for reference, since it simply compared the radar satellite images before and after the earthquake. It is necessary to use an airborne platform to take high-resolution images to see the extent of deformation and whether an earthquake will cause avalanches in the future. 

Hailuogou glacier is the largest of the 74 glaciers in the Mount Gongga region. Gongga is the highest mountain in Sichuan Province.

As the glacier has kept retreating in recent years, the ice tongue region has gradually disconnected from the ice waterfall of Hailuogou, creating a fair buffer zone for the collapsing snow and ice. Thus, it is unlikely that an earthquake will cause severe successive geological disasters, said Liu Qiao, a researcher at the Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

However, it is still possible to have localized mudslides in the lower part of the glacier due to the fast melting snow , enhanced instability of periglacial landform, and continuous heavy rainfall after the earthquake.

Onsite monitoring and research are still required to assess the actual impact of the Luding earthquake on Hailuogou glacier. Currently, the only path to Hailuogou glacier is completely damaged and blocked, and repair work is ongoing.

(Cover image via CFP. With input from Sichuan Daily.) 

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