Kolkata/New Delhi, October 6 – This week, a burst Himalayan lake and subsequent floods claimed the lives of at least 42 people in the Indian Himalayas, officials said on Friday, while rescue workers are searching for nearly 150 missing individuals.
In the mountainous northeastern state of Sikkim, heavy rains after a cloudburst and clear snowmelt caused the Lhonak lake to overflow, leading to severe flooding in the Teesta River.
This was one of the most devastating disasters in the region in over 50 years and the latest in a series of extreme weather events that have wrought havoc in the Himalayas of South Asia, a consequence scientists have attributed to climate change.
Officials in Sikkim said the disaster, which struck just before popular festivals and the tourism season, has impacted the lives of 22,000 people in this picturesque state.
Javed Ahmad Ansari, a 44-year-old resident of the Teesta Valley who runs a river rafting business, said, “We received calls from people that the river’s water level could rise at 3 a.m., and we fled to save our lives.”
“We ran towards the mountains… we saw our homes being swept away. I can now only see the first floor of our house filled with sand, everything is submerged.”
According to those participating in the operation, if a fully functional early warning system for glacial lake outbursts and floods in the Lhonak lake had been in place, people would have had more time to flee. However, scientists and government officials were still working on it, they told Reuters.
Vijay Bhushan Pathak, the senior-most bureaucrat in Sikkim, said that 20 bodies were found in the state and 22 in the neighboring state of West Bengal. Among the 22, six were Indian soldiers who were swept away in Sikkim. Pathak told Reuters that photographs of the remaining 16 would be broadcast in Sikkim to determine if they belonged to the state or West Bengal.
The number of missing persons has increased to 142, including 15 soldiers, as people intensified their search efforts after the weather improved on Friday, Pathak said. Military helicopters attempted four operations to rescue stranded tourists in the state’s remote areas but were unsuccessful due to adverse weather conditions. They plan to try again on Saturday.
Bandana Chettri, a top official from the state tourism department, reassured that over 50 foreign tourists, along with all other visitors, are safe.
Earlier on Friday, an official from the state, Tsheten Bhutia, said that rescue and relief teams are struggling as entire areas in northern Sikkim have been completely cut off. He said nearly 2,400 people have been evacuated so far, with 7,600 people in relief camps. Both private and government establishments in the region have been shut down until October 15.
Fifteen bridges in the state have been washed away, hampering rescue operations. The Indian government stated that all downstream bridges of the NHPC (National Hydroelectric Power Corporation) Teesta-V hydroelectric plant have either submerged or collapsed.
Images and videos on social media depict roads and paths strewn with debris and boulders, vehicles stuck, and small, muddy rivers flowing through the mountains.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Defence stated in a social media post that military equipment, including mortars and explosives, have been washed away into the Teesta River.
Local legislator Pradeep Kumar Burman told news agency ANI that in a neighboring district of West Bengal, people picked up a mortar shell which later exploded, resulting in the death of a child and injuring six others.
The meteorological department said Sikkim received 101 mm (four inches) of rain in the first five days of October, more than double the normal level, making it worse than the floods in October 1968, which claimed an estimated 1,000 lives.
The India Meteorological Department said heavy rainfall was expected in some parts of the region on Friday but with a possibility of reduced intensity. Sikkim, a small Buddhist state with nearly 650,000 people, surrounded by mountains in Nepal, Bhutan, and China, has been cut off from West Bengal’s Siliguri as the main highway connecting it to the rest of the country has been washed away.