Climate Change: Glacier in the Himalayas caused at least Nine Deaths and 150 Missing

At least nine people died and 150 are missing after the rupture of a glacier in the Himalayas which caused a sudden flood of a river in northern India, police said.

“We located at least three bodies in the river bed. The last balance shows 150 missing persons. There are also 16 or 17 people locked in a tunnel,” a spokesman for the Uttarakhand state police told GLM. Subsequently, the fatality count continued to rise.

The disaster took place early in the morning in the district of Chamoli, in the state of Uttarakhand in the Himalayas, when the rupture of a glacier triggered the avalanche and massive floods following the course of the channels of several rivers, forcing to the emergency evacuation of thousands of people.

The sudden rise in the waters swept away everything in its path in this narrow valley, including a dam, bridges and roads, according to images taken by terrified locals.

Rupture of a Himalayan glacier due to Climate Change causes severe flooding in India

Most of the 150 missing are employees of the Tapovan Power Plant, near a dam that was broken by the flood. Rescue teams were struggling to urgently evacuate dozens of villages from the area and reach the tunnel where people are trapped.

Personnel from the disaster response force and some 350 members of different police forces are currently working on rescue work, while another 600 are in reserve, according to the Uttarakhand head of government on Twitter. Trivendra Singh Rawat.

Uttarakhand is an Indian state located in the Himalayas and where the Ganges is born.

Most of the villages being evacuated are in the hills overlooking the river, which is a tributary of the Ganges.

Videos filmed with mobile phones of the moment of the avalanche and disseminated by social networks, show the sudden arrival of a large column of mud and water through the bed of a river, hitting the slopes of the valley with force and destroying structures such as that of at least one of the affected hydroelectric plants.

“At the moment there are no additional water flows or floods anywhere,” the Uttarakhand head of government stressed in the early afternoon. Authorities emptied two dams as a precaution to prevent raging waters from overflowing the Ganges in the cities of Rishikesh and Haridwar, and prohibited residents of both cities from approaching the banks of the holy river.

“India supports the people of Uttarakhand and the nation prays for the safety of all in this region,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Twitter.

The regional police asked the inhabitants of the affected areas on social media to remain calm and move to safe places while rescue services arrive.

“I am constantly monitoring the unfortunate situation in Uttarakhand. India supports Uttarakhand and the nation prays for the safety of all there,” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Twitter.

This mountainous region in the Himalayas also witnessed floods, landslides and the collapse of buildings in June 2013 after monsoon rains were a month early and 68% more rainfall than usual.

That tragedy caused about 7,000 deaths or disappearances, many of them Hindu pilgrims who had come to Uttarakhand to visit some of the most important places for this religion, and where the sacred river Ganges is also born.