Among the more than 6000 now known to have perished in the Nepal earthquake was Professor Matthias Kuhle, the world renowned glacial geomorphologist from the University of Göttingen.  Kuhle was accompanying a party of students on a field excursion at the time of his death. The students themselves were unharmed but traumatised and have returned to Germany safely according to eye-witness reports.  Professor Kuhle completed his undergraduate studies at the Free University of Berlin and attended the University of Göttingen for his PhD, conferred in 1975 for a dissertation on the geomorphology and Quaternary glaciation of the southern Iranian high mountains. In 1980 he achieved his habilitation in Geography with a monograph entitled Dhaulagiri- and Annapurna Himalaya: A Contribution to the Geomorphology of Extreme High Mountains and he was to become renowned for his field-based research on high Asia and Himalaya. He was appointed Professor of Geography at the University of Göttingen in 1983, and promoted to the chair of Geography and High Mountain Geomorphology in 1990.  The IGU extends its condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of Professor Kuhle.