On the fourth of October, 2023, the South Lhonak Glacial Lake burst through the dirt moraine holding it, and its waters cascaded down the Teesta River Valley. Within hours, this flood had destroyed the large Teesta III Dam, fifteen bridges in Sikkim and West Bengal, and wreaked havoc on towns and roads as it travelled 414 kilometres to the Brahmaputra River in Bangladesh. Over a hundred people died, and at least another 70 are still missing. One of the deaths was a child who picked up ammunition washed downstream from a high-altitude army base. Media reports initially described the event as a “Natural Disaster” caused by excessive rain above South Lhonak. But they then went on to list human causes for this disaster: the unmonitored glacial lake, the lack of communication along the flood’s route, neglect by either the current or former Sikkim chief minister, the multiple dams along the river, and climate change. In this talk, we will investigate the causes of the flood and finds the main culprit to be human rather than natural, and more specifically, one particular human fault: short-term thinking. The only way to prevent future disasters in the Himalaya—and elsewhere—is to acknowledge longer and localised environmental systems, and plan with them in mind. As this talk explores, however, long-term thinking is often socially and politically difficult.