Himalayan Flooding Kills 14, More than 100 Missing in India
Editor
5 October 2023 16:05 WIB
A 2020 report by India's disaster management agency said glacial lakes are growing and pose a potentially large risk to downstream infrastructure and life as the glaciers in the Himalayas are in a retreating phase due to climate change.
"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 Pema Gyamtsho, director general of the Nepal-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development.
Other mountainous areas of India, as well as parts of neighboring Pakistan and Nepal, have been hit by torrential rains, flooding, and landslides in recent months, killing scores of people.
An article by India's National Remote Sensing Centre scientists a decade ago had warned the chances of the lake bursting its banks were "very high" at 42%.
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.
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.
REUTERS
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