The retreat of the ice causes so-called glacial lakes in the Himalayas, which are a key source of water to densely populated South Asia -- a region that already suffers deadly floods on an annual basis.

"We don't have much time to avert the risks of the bursting of a glacial lake," Ken Noguchi, a Japanese alpinist who has visited the Himalayas dozens of times, told a first-of-a-kind Asian "water summit" in Beppu, Japan.

In Nepal, the Imja glacial lake "was just a small puddle in the 1960s" but now has a one-kilometre (half-mile) radius with 2.9 millions tonnes of water, Noguchi said.

"Scientists have told me that the lake can break anytime soon, and if that happens, villagers will get hit by a massive flood," he said.

Nepal's mountain-hardy Sherpa people "are scared to hear that, and every time I visit there they ask me to do something to solve the problem," he said.

Noguchi said he initially thought "this is out of my hands" but decided to take part in the two-day conference here to press political leaders to take action to save the roof of the world.

The meeting coincides with the opening of a key conference on global warming on the Indonesian island of Bali which aims to hammer out a new framework to fight climate change after the landmark Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.

Lyonpo Kinzang Dorji, prime minister of the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, said that while major nations debated global warming, small countries such as his were feeling the effects.

"Although Bhutan is not contributing to global warming, negative effects, such as a retreat of glaciers, are (seen) in our country," Dorji told the conference.

He said that while Bhutan had taken precautions since a 1994 glacial lake burst caused heavy damage, international action was needed amid the threat of climate change.

"Effective communications at international levels and at the national levels for developing appropriate action plans is necessary," he said.

He also said that generation of hydropower, which constitutes 40 percent of Bhutan's government revenue, would also be "very seriously affected" by melting glaciers.

Experts, however, said that not enough data or action had been taken to address the melting of glaciers.

"This mountainous area has a serious problem in that it lacks a monitoring system," said Kuniyoshi Takeuchi, director of the UN-backed International Centre for Water Hazard and Risk Management based in Japan's Ibaraki prefecture.

He said that Japan could share with other countries its knowledge on early warnings for floods.

Flooding is already an annual problem in South Asia during the monsoon season. This year, more than 2,200 people were killed in rains and floods in India.

But the destruction of glaciers could trigger another sort of crisis by drying up the headwaters for Asia's nine largest rivers, a lifeline for the 1.3 billion people who live downstream.

In June, a conference of glaciologists in the Nepalese capital of Kathmandu heard that at present trends the glaciers could disappear within the next 50 years.

Noguchi, the climber, said he had noticed that the Himalayas were becoming more dangerous, with increasingly frequent landslides.

"As an impatient person, I wanted to hear more concrete discussions," Noguchi said after the conference's talk on glaciers.

"Well, this is the first step. I'll keep lobbying political leaders to know more about the Himalayas' problems and to take action," he said.

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