Sikkim was hit by a devastating flash flood early Wednesday – in which 40 people were killed and a critical 1200 MW hydroelectric power station was destroyed.
The floods were triggered by a cloudburst over a glacial lake located over 17,000 feet above sea level in the Himalayas. Over the past three days, as the Sikkim government works to rescue people, restore communications, and rebuild infrastructure, it seems there were multiple warnings of disasters like the GLOF event at the South Lhonak Lake.
On Friday learnt a Parliamentary Committee had red-flagged the “severe shortage of meteorological and monitoring stations in Himalayan regions”. Parliament was told on March 29 Sikkim has 694 glacial lakes and eight flood forecasting stations; three for water levels and five for inflows.
The report – “Glacier Management in the Country: Monitoring of Glaciers/Lakes, Including Glacial Lake Outbursts Leading to Flashfloods, in the Himalayan Region” – warned Parliament the Himalayan-Karakoram region is warming at a faster rate (by 0.5 degrees C) than the global mean. Parliament was therefore warned that this would lead to glaciers melting far quicker than normal.
The report’s findings seem to tally with research papers, including one in 2013 and another in 2021. Both noted the South Lhonak glacier, which feeds the lake that burst, receded by two km between 1962 and 2008 and 400m more in the following 11 years, increasing the amount of water in the lake.
The increasing glacial run-off, the lead scientist of the 2013 paper told NDTV, increased the lake’s surface area by 500 metres and average depth by 50 metres; temporal satellite images released by space agency ISRO indicated that around 100 hectares of water had burst from the lake.