At least 56 people are confirmed dead in floods that hit India’s northeast as of yesterday, with the army warning that munitions washed away by the deluge posed a public safety risk.
Violent torrents struck Sikkim state on Wednesday after the sudden bursting of a high-altitude glacial lake.
Climate scientists say that similar disasters would become an increasing danger across the Himalayas as global temperatures rise and ice melts.
Photo: Reuters
“So far 26 bodies have been found in Sikkim,” Sikkim State Relief Commissioner Anilraj Rai said.
Thirty more bodies had been recovered from the Teesta River basin by search-and-rescue teams downstream in neighboring West Bengal state, Jalpaiguri District Police Superintendent K. Umesh Ganpat said.
“The river stretches up to 86km,” he added. “The search operation is continuing.”
Among the dead are seven Indian army soldiers posted in Sikkim, which sits on India’s remote frontiers with Nepal and China, and boasts a sizeable military presence. Sixteen soldiers are among the more than 100 people still missing.
The Indian Ministry of Defense said in a statement that the floods had washed away “firearms and explosives” from military camps.
The army has “established lookout teams all along the river” to recover loose ordnance, the ministry added.
Local media reports on Friday said that two people had been killed and four others injured by a mortar shell that exploded while flowing through the flood waters in West Bengal.
Roads, bridges and telephone lines have been destroyed across much of the state, complicating evacuations and efforts to communicate with thousands cut off from the rest of the country.
More than 1,200 houses had been damaged by the floods, the latest Sikkim government bulletin said.
More than 2,400 people had been rescued, while nearly 7,000 were taking shelter at makeshift relief camps set up at schools, government offices and guesthouses, the bulletin said.
The water surge came after intense rainfall burst the high-altitude Lhonak Lake, which sits at the base of a glacier in peaks surrounding the world’s third-highest mountain, Kangchenjunga.
Water powered downstream, adding to a river already swollen by monsoon rains, damaging a dam and sweeping away houses.
Experts said that intense rain and a magnitude 6.2 earthquake that struck nearby Nepal on Tuesday afternoon might have contributed to damaging the dam.
A 2019 report compiled by the Sikkim State Disaster Management Authority identified Lhonak Lake as “highly vulnerable” to flooding that could breach dams and cause extensive damage to life and property.
Himalayan glaciers are melting faster than ever due to climate change, exposing communities to unpredictable and costly disasters, the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) research group said.
“The root cause is climate change and this going to increase in the future,” ICIMOD climate change specialist Arun Bhakta Shrestha said. “Similar glacial lake outbursts flood events are very likely.”
Earth’s average surface temperature has risen nearly 1.2°C since pre-industrial times, but high-mountain regions around the world have warmed at twice that pace, climate scientists say.
Additional reporting by AP
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