Dharamshala, Aug. 29 -- Tibetan officials have questioned whether authorities failed to provide timely warnings ahead of the flash flood that hit the Nepal-Tibet border on August 26, saying a possible 20-minute gap between a glacier collapse and the flood surge could have given people time to escape.

Speaking to ANI, Tempa Gyaltsen, a Tibetan environmentalist and joint secretary at the Central Tibetan Administration's Department of Information and International Relations, said his research indicated a time difference of at least 20 minutes between the glacier collapse, as recorded by the US Geological Survey, and the flood reaching a Chinese border post that was subsequently washed away.

"Twenty minutes in a natural disaster is so much ...