By Ken Afor
At least 10 people were killed in a catastrophic flash flood brought on by the burst of a high-altitude glacial lake in India, according to officials in the country.
Also, 102 people were still missing on Thursday as rescue teams continued search.
Climate scientists warn that the wider Himalayan mountain range is increasingly at risk from violent flooding from glacier lakes dammed by loose rock as global temperatures rise and ice melts.
“At least 10 people were killed and 102 others reported missing,” Prabhakar Rai, director of the Sikkim state disaster management authority, told AFP a day after a wall of water rushed down the mountainous valley in northeastern India.
Authorities reported that 14 bridges had been washed away and that roads had suffered “severe” damage.
In spite of communications being disrupted in many places and roads being blocked, rescuers were still working to aid those affected by the flood.
“Floodwaters have caused havoc in four districts of the state, sweeping away people, roads, bridges,” Himanshu Tiwari, an Indian Army spokesman, told AFP.
According to the army, 22 soldiers are among the missing. One soldier who had been missing was found.
The army said in a statement that it was working to restore phone service and provide “medical aid to tourists and locals stranded.”
The high-altitude Lhonak Lake, which is located at the foot of a glacier in peaks surrounding the third-highest mountain in the world, Kangchenjunga, experienced a water surge following intense rainfall.
According to research from the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), Himalayan glaciers are melting more quickly than ever as a result of climate change, putting communities at risk for unpredictably expensive disasters.
A dam was damaged, homes and bridges were washed away, and “serious destruction” was caused, according to the Sikkim State government, as water powered downstream and added to a river that was already swollen from monsoon rains.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has pledged “all possible support” for those impacted after damage was discovered more than 120 kilometers (75 miles) downstream.
Satellite images published by the Indian Space Research Organisation showed that Lhonak Lake had shrunk by almost two-thirds, or an area roughly equal to 150 football fields (105 hectares).
“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 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.”
According to climate scientists, the average surface temperature of the Earth has increased by nearly 1.2 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times, but high-mountain regions around the world have warmed at twice that rate.
With a sizable military presence, Sikkim is close to the border between India and Nepal and China.
The 3,500-kilometer (2,200-mile) shared border between China and India has long been a source of tension because Beijing has claimed parts of Sikkim. India has been wary of China’s growing military assertiveness.
