UTTARAKHAND, INDIA (CNA) – It was a start to the year that Anjali Rawat and her family did not expect: Having to run for their lives in the middle of the night. Cracks were appearing in the hotel behind their home in Joshimath town. The hotel windows were falling, an employee informed Anjali’s neighbour. “They […]
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In Uttarakhand Disaster, the Handiwork of Climate Change Is Unmistakable 08/02/2021
Rescue workers outside a tunnel after the Uttarakhand flood on February 7, 2021, in Tapovan, February 8. Photo: Reuters/Stringer.
Under the weight of a suspected avalanche, a massive chunk of ice and frozen mud broke away from a glacier in the high Himalayas and fell into a lake that had formed at its snout due to climate change. The moraine around the lake collapsed and a flash flood came roaring down the Rishi Ganga river in Uttarakhand, India, on the morning of February 7. Over a day later, more than 152 people working inside tunnels to build two hydroelectricity projects downstream were still missing; 25 have been rescued and ten bodies found. Mud inundates the project sites, and teams are still trying to open up the tunnels. One large and ten smaller bridges have been washed away.