Death toll rises to 11 in avalanche in Uttarakhand’s Chamoli

The death toll rises to 11 in avalanche in Uttarakhand’s Chamoli.

The death toll in an avalanche near the Indochina border in Uttarakhand’s Chamoli district rose to 11 on Sunday, authorities here said.

Ten bodies were recovered as of Saturday. One more body was recovered Sunday and a rescue operation is underway, the district’s disaster management office said here.

Chamoli District Magistrate Swati S Bhadauriya and Police Superintendent Yashwant Singh have been at the scene since Saturday to monitor rescue operations.

Uttarakhand Police Chief Ashok Kumar said a total of 430 BRO workers were at the road construction site when the avalanche occurred on Friday.

Sumna, where the avalanche occurred, is approximately 25 km from the village of Malari and is near the confluence of Girthigad and Kiogad, two streams originating from the Dhauli Ganga River, which witnessed a disastrous avalanche in February, killing 80 people and leaving 126 missings.

A part of the Nanda Devi glacier broke in Chamoli on February 7, causing massive flooding, recalling a 2019 study that warned of the dangers of climate change and said Himalayan glaciers have melted twice as fast since the beginning. of this century.

The glacier collapse at Joshimath caused massive flooding in the Alaknanda river system and caused large-scale devastation in the upper reaches of the ecologically fragile Himalayas.

In June 2019, a study spanning 40 years of satellite observations in India, China, Nepal, and Bhutan, indicated that climate change is devouring Himalayan glaciers.

The study, published in the journal Science Advances, shows that glaciers have been losing the equivalent of more than a vertical foot and half of their ice every year since 2000, twice the amount of melting that took place between 1975 and 2000.