Glacial lake in north-east India bursts banks in heavy rain, at least 14 killed
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GUWAHATI, India – At least 14 people were killed and 102 are missing after heavy rain caused a Himalayan glacial lake in north-east India to burst its banks, and rescuers were being hampered by washed-out bridges and fast-flowing rivers, said officials on Thursday.
The Lhonak lake in Sikkim state burst its banks on Wednesday, causing major flooding, which the authorities said had impacted the lives of 22,000 people. Wednesday’s disaster was worse than a 1968 lake breach in Sikkim as it involved the release of dam water from state-run NHPC’s Teesta V dam, according to officials.
It is the latest deadly weather event in South Asia’s mountains blamed on climate change.
“The search operations are being undertaken under conditions of incessant rain, fast-flowing water in Teesta river, roads and bridges washed away at many places,” a defence spokesperson said.
As at early Thursday, the state disaster management agency said 26 people were injured.
Among the missing are 22 soldiers, the army said. One previously missing soldier had been rescued. Fourteen bridges had been washed away.
Video footage from the ANI news agency showed flood waters surging into built-up areas where several houses had collapsed, army bases and other facilities were damaged and vehicles were submerged.
Satellite imagery showed that nearly two-thirds of the lake seemed to have been drained.
The weather department warned of landslides and disruption to flights as more rain is expected over the next two days in parts of Sikkim and neighbouring states. Sikkim was cut off from Siliguri city in West Bengal as the main highway had collapsed.
Mr G.T. Dhungel, a member of the Sikkim legislative assembly, told Reuters that petrol and diesel had already become scarce in Gangtok, but food was easily available.
The flash floods in the Teesta valley – about 150km north of Gangtok, near the border with China – were triggered when a cloudburst dropped a huge amount of rain over a short period on the Lhonak glacial lake on Wednesday.
A house amid flood waters on Oct 4 after the Teesta River overflowed in India’s Sikkim state.
PHOTO: AFP
The wall of water powered downstream, adding to a river already swollen by monsoon rains, damaging a dam, sweeping away houses and bridges, and causing “serious destruction”, the Sikkim state government said.
Damage was recorded more than 120km downstream, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has promised “all possible support” for those impacted.
“Sadly, this is the latest in a series of deadly flash floods that ricocheted across the Hindu Kush-Himalayan region this monsoon, bringing the reality of this region’s extreme vulnerability to climate change all too vividly alive,” said Mr Pema Gyamtsho, director general of the Nepal-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development.
A government source told Reuters that four dam gates had been washed away, and it was not clear why they had not been opened in time. NHPC said it will assess the damage when the water level recedes to normal.
Other mountainous areas of India, as well as parts of neighbouring Pakistan and Nepal, have been hit by torrential rain, flooding and landslides in recent months, killing scores of people.
An article a decade ago by scientists from India’s National Remote Sensing Centre had warned that the chances of the lake bursting its banks were “very high”, at 42 per cent.
A 2020 report by India’s national disaster management agency said glacial lakes were growing and posed a potentially large risk to downstream infrastructure and life as the glaciers in the Himalayas were in a retreating phase because of climate change.
Himalayan glaciers are melting faster than ever due to climate change, exposing communities to unpredictable and costly disasters, according to the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (Icimod) research group.
“Intense rain has led to this catastrophic situation in Sikkim where the rain has triggered a glacial lake outburst flood and damaged a dam, and caused loss of life”, said Dr Miriam Jackson, a scientist specialising in ice who monitors Himalayan regions with the Nepal-based Icimod.
“We observe that such extreme events increase in frequency as the climate continues to warm and takes us into unknown territory.”
Earth’s average surface temperature has risen nearly 1.2 deg C since pre-industrial times, but high-mountain regions around the world have warmed at twice that pace, climate scientists say.
Sikkim is close to India’s border with Nepal and China and boasts a sizeable military presence.
India has been wary of China’s growing military assertiveness and their 3,500km shared frontier has been a perennial source of tension, with parts of Sikkim claimed by Beijing. REUTERS, AFP
