The threat of the barrier lake formed after Wednesday's catastrophic mudslide at the Gyirong Port, a major China-Nepal land border crossing in southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region, continues to subside, with the lake's size steadily shrinking, according to an on-site monitoring team.
In the wake of the disaster, which has claimed at least seven lives and left more than 550 others missing in Gyirong, China Anneng -- a state-owned engineering and rescue enterprise -- has deployed teams to the disaster zone to support the search and rescue operations.
One of the teams tasked with monitoring the barrier lake, which sits over 10 kilometers upstream from the port, said real-time surveillance footage showed the lake was continuing to drain out.
"Our task today is to find a stable monitoring point on the opposite bank and install our detection equipment there to monitor the displacement of the landslide body and guard against the risks of a secondary collapse," said Chen Hanxiao, a member of the monitoring team from the Lhasa base of China Anneng.
The 15-member monitoring team have brought with it drones, satellite stations, and communication gear.
"A comparison of today's imagery with yesterday's shows that the water level here has dropped by about one-third. The receding water poses no further threat to the dam's structural integrity, buying valuable time for the rescue crews to carry out critical hazard mitigation work," said Hu Bo, head of the monitoring team.
However, Hu cautioned that despite the encouraging signs, the situation remains unpredictable given the region's complex glacial environment and changeable weather conditions. He stressed that real-time surveillance and data analysis are vital to assessing the barrier lake's stability and supporting follow-up operations.
The mudslide was triggered by a high-altitude glacier collapse on the Nepalese side, where the disaster had killed more than 620 people and left over 2,400 others missing, as of Saturday morning, according to the country's national disaster risk reduction and management authority.
Threat of barrier lake waning after massive mudslide near China-Nepal border
Persistent drought, extreme heat and geopolitical conflict have sharply cut Iran's pistachio production this year, with supplies to China falling significantly.
China relies heavily on imports for its pistachios, mainly from the United States and Iran. Global pistachio output for the 2026/27 season is forecast at about 701,000 tonnes, down 36 percent from the previous season and below one million tonnes for the first time in four years, according to data released by the International Nut and Dried Fruit Council in June.
Rafsanjan in Kerman Province is the most densely planted pistachio area in Iran, with the country having roughly 600,000 hectares of pistachio orchards.
Pistachios in Iran usually flower during the April to May period, and are harvested in August through September.
The founding member of the Iran Pistachio Association (IPA) said that in the past two years, pistachios have suffered high temperatures to varying degrees during both the flowering and fruit-growth stages, damaging many trees and affecting the entire year's harvest.
"The severe heat in April, it damaged last year's crop, but more than that, it damaged this year's crop. This is why Iran has only about 120,000 tons this year. We should have had about maybe 240,000, 250,000 tons," said Behrouz Agah, a founding member of the Iran Pistachio Association (IPA).
Pistachios have a short shelf life, so freshly harvested nuts are usually sent to nearby factories for hulling, washing and processing. Iranian pistachios are graded into different specifications according to size and appearance, ranging from 18 to 38 nuts per ounce.
Automatic color sorters are used mainly to grade pistachio quality; after grading, the nuts can be packaged and sold.
To cope with operating pressure from rising prices, some companies are no longer limited to traditional purchases of finished kernels and have begun adjusting their procurement strategies.
"Because of the supply chain situation for suppliers, we will buy in-shell nuts and then find new channels to extract the kernels. We will develop new channels with more advantageous prices and supply," said Yang Juan, purchasing manager of a Chinese food company.
Iran's pistachio harvest halved by climate shocks, shrinking China's import supply
