A Himalayan lake fed by melting ice just released a devastating flood in northern India. Thousands of other unstable lakes are getting bigger every year.
“We saw houses vanish in front of our eyes,” says Aadesh, an engineer living in the northern Indian state of Sikkim. One of them was his own. In the early hours of October 4, Lhonak Lake—a Himalayan glacial lake—burst its banks, releasing huge amounts of water into the river valleys below. In the Chungthang region where Aadesh lives, many miles downstream, bridges, police barracks, homes, and guest houses were washed away by water flowing at over 50 kilometers per hour.
Mitigating the risk at Lhonak had not been sufficiently prioritized. It was a job left unfinished. Research had clearly shown that the lake posed a risk. A report published by Sikkim’s Department of Science and Technology had identified eight glacial lakes—including Lhonak—as potentially hazardous back in 2013, and research published the same year estimated that Lhonak had a 42 percent chance of bursting at some point in the future.
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