Uttarakhand glacier slides down, hits connectivity
A glacier slid down in the Darma Valley of Uttarakhand’s Pithoragarh district and covered nearly 800 feet stretch of the road on Wednesday, snapping the road connectivity to villages and defence posts located near the Indo-China border, officials said on Wednesday.
A glacier slid down in the Darma Valley of Uttarakhand’s Pithoragarh district and covered nearly 800 feet stretch of the road on Wednesday, snapping the road connectivity to villages and defence posts located near the Indo-China border, officials said on Wednesday.
Villagers in Darma valley and defence personnel going to their posts near Indo-China border faced difficulty to cross the glacier covered stretch. The glacier has slid down on the mountainside at Ghangmanati between Bungling and Urthing villages of the Darma valley, officials said.
Experts said that breaking of the glacier, which took place on March 4, is another indication of growing impact of climate change in the upper reaches of Uttarakhand and damage caused to the local ecology because of unplanned development, especially large scale construction of roads without much environment safety measures.
The glacial bursts can block the natural flow of streams and rivers creating a huge pond that can burst causing flooding in the downstream. That is exactly what happened near Raini village in Chamoli district in February 2021 causing massive flooding killing 204 people.
“The route will be opened soon. Central Public Words Department (CPWD) officials have been asked to remove the ice and snow from the road stretch, “said Anil Shukla, sub-divisional magistrate Dharchula, ruling out the possibility of creation of any glacial lake.
Shukla said soon the tribal villagers of Darma valley will start migrating to their summer homes in higher reaches of the valley and all snow deposits at other places will also be removed with high priority so that migrating villagers, who return their homes with their animal herds, can do so without any difficulty.
According to the villagers, the glacier at Ghangmanati Nullah has slid many times in the past also but it was for the first time it blocked the main road.
“Breaking of glacial ice has been happening for some time,” said Shalu Datal, a villager from Dantu village of Darma valley. He added that this time the ice break is bigger and because of its size it got pushed down till the road.
The upper reaches of Uttarakhand including Pithoragarh district has received heavy snow this year and Datal said because of sudden increase in temperature faster ice-melting is happening, a reason for the glacial burst.
On February 7 last year, glacier breakage, snow avalanche and rockfall caused flash floods in Chamoli district, killing 204 people and damaging two under-construction hydel power projects- Rishi Ganga and NTPC’s Tapovan Dam.
Even the incident, the Uttarakhand government had said that there would be an early warning system for glacial burst. But, no such system is in place that can alert people downstream to vacate the river babk area in case of calamitous events like lake bursts or flash floods due to landslides.
Only around 10 or so glaciers are being monitored among 1000 to 1400 glaciers found in Uttarakhand, according to the state disaster management authority. One major reason is location of these glaciers is in remote snowy areas and lack of enough funding for their regular monitoring, which requires the setting of observatories, sensors and other equipment in the valleys downstream, apart from regular ground surveys.