Truth another casualty when disaster becomes disinformation

The facts are grim enough. On Wednesday last week, a massive mudslide struck Gyirong Port, one of the main land gateways on the China-Nepal border, after a high-altitude glacier collapsed on the Nepali side, causing heavy casualties.

However, some media outlets in the United States, the United Kingdom and India, etc, have rushed to weaponize the tragedy, falsely suggesting that China "knowingly failed to warn Nepal in advance" and "concealed information", and that "Chinese dams and infrastructure projects were the cause of the catastrophe".

Scientific assessment, however, paints a different picture. Satellite imagery and analysis by geological experts indicate that a glacier at an elevation of roughly 5,200 meters collapsed in Nepal, dragging enormous quantities of ice and rock into a mountain river channel. The resulting ice-rock avalanche rapidly transformed into a debris flow and then a mudslide, gathering mass and destructive force as it descended. With the debris traveling at an estimated 50 meters per second, it took just seven minutes after the onset of the ice avalanche for the mudslide to hit Gyirong Port in China's Xizang autonomous region.

The false notion that the Chinese side was watching an approaching tsunami of destruction and "deliberately withholding an alert" is beyond the bounds of credibility.

Scientists have warned that the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and the surrounding Himalayan region — the world's "Third Pole" — are becoming increasingly vulnerable as glaciers retreat and destabilize. Human-caused atmospheric global warming has been the primary driver of glacier retreat since the 1990s, while continued melting can make glaciers more susceptible to collapse and cascading hazards.

Blaming China's infrastructure without scientific evidence is much easier — and much more useful as clickbait for generating outrage — than raising key questions about greenhouse gas emissions and actions.

The same problem appears in the false claims that China is "censoring" information about the disaster, which were rebutted by Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun, who said that search and rescue operations are still underway and China is being open, transparent and timely in releasing information.

The Chinese authorities have not only acted swiftly in response to the disaster by sending professional rescuers and assistance to the affected region, but also released, in a timely manner, casualty figures, details of rescue deployments, damage to roads and infrastructure and footage from the disaster zone. As Guo said, China rejects malicious speculation that has no factual basis.

In a disaster, disinformation can divert public attention away from the practical work of saving people. And that work is continuing across the affected region. China has provided Nepal with emergency cash assistance and humanitarian supplies, sent tunnel-rescue experts, and shared satellite imagery, hydrological data and early-warning information concerning an upstream barrier lake. Chinese and Nepali authorities remain in close contact over missing people and relief efforts.

This is where the phrase "if it bleeds, it leads" becomes more than a cynical description of the habit of some newsrooms. Disaster footage activates fear, grief and anger — precisely the emotions that make sensational claims travel fastest. Confirmation bias encourages people to accept stories that fit their prejudice. The illusory-truth effect makes repetition look like verification. Motivated reasoning allows people to protect a preferred narrative even when inconvenient facts get in the way.

The established media cannot preserve credibility simply by assuming they still possess it. They need to earn it, story by story. That means stepping outside their own information bubbles, questioning attractive narratives as aggressively as inconvenient ones, and resisting the urge to turn every disaster involving China into a morality play in which China is smeared as the "villain".

The families of the dead and missing and those who have lost their homes and livelihood do not need another geopolitical storyline imposed on their suffering. They need facts and assistance. The mudslide has already taken lives. Journalism should not allow truth to be another casualty.