Is the Kedarnath tragedy going to be repeated at Badrinath? Unpreced-ented rain caused the Chorabari Lake located above the Kedarnath shrine to burst its banks in mid-June bringing with it huge boulders and debris which destroyed the town and caused the death of thousands of lives.
Experts have warned that a lake formed following the melting of glaciers, including the Satopanth glacier in Chamoli district, is posing a serious threat to the Badrinath shrine. The state NDMA officials have issued a warning to people living in the rain-ravaged districts of Badrinath, Joshimath and Karnaprayag.
Admitting the seriousness of the situation, the district magistrate of Chamoli S.A. Murugesan said, “We are monitoring the situation on an hourly basis.’
Prof. Anil Kumar Gupta, deputy director-general of the Geological Survey of India (GSI) admitted, “The 200 lakes in the Himalayas are vulnerable and need to be monitored very carefully. We need to understand the extent to which these lakes are posing a threat especially since the phenomena of glacial melt has got exacerbated because of climate change.’’
Already, the ministry of science and technology and the National Disaster Management Authority have contacted the GSI and asked them to study all the lakes in the Himalayan region and focus on those which could pose a threat in the near future.
Explaining the Kedarnath flash floods, Dr N.C. Sharma, director of the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, “The water level rose by eight to 10 feet bringing with it a huge amount of debris. The flash flood lasted just 10 minutes but look at the enormous amount of damage it caused.”