Study: 15 million people live under threat of glacial floods

By SETH BORENSTEIN
AP Science Writer

A new study finds that as glaciers melt and pour massive amounts of water into nearby lakes, some 15 million people across the globe are living in the danger zone of a sudden and deadly outburst flood. Tuesday’s study says that more than half of those living in the shadow of the disaster called glacial lake outburst floods are in just four countries: India, Pakistan, Peru and China. Scientists haven’t found these floods increasing in frequency but they say climate change is making the lakes bigger and more unstable. That means the threat is bigger when the floods happen.