Scientists have determined that the cause was an outburst from a glacial lake. According to Jakob Steiner, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Graz (Austria), and Amrit Thapa, a PhD student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, the glacial lake had formed in March, approximately 35km upstream from the border inside Chinese territory.

As an academy graduate, Longstaff wanted his boyhood team to be compensated rather than face losing him as a free agent next summer.