New Delhi: The death and destruction left behind by the flash floods in the Kheer Ganga river in Dharali resurrected painful memories for Geeta, a survivor of the 2013 Kedarnath disaster, who lost four family members in that tragedy, India’s worst since the 2004 tsunami.
“The same thing happened in Kedarnath,” she exclaimed as visuals played out on a television at a house in New Delhi where she now works as a domestic help.
The 2013 disaster was triggered by more than 300 mm of rain in 24 hours as an early intense monsoon surge interacted with a western disturbance. The extreme rainfall, combined with rapid snowmelt, breached the moraine dam of Chorabari Lake, unleashing massive floods that killed around 5,700 people.
Scarred by the tragedy, Geeta (now 45 years old) and her family migrated to Delhi to rebuild their lives. But each time a calamity hits the Himalayan state, it revives those haunting memories for her.
Over the past 12 years, a series of disasters have underscored the fragility of the Himalayan terrain.
On August 18, 2019, a cloudburst in Tikochi and Makudi villages in Uttarkashi’s Arakot region triggered flash floods and landslides, killing at least 19 people and affecting 38 villages.
In February 2021, the collapse of a hanging glacier caused a debris flow in the Ronti Gad stream, a tributary of Rishiganga, sweeping away two hydropower projects in Chamoli. Eighty bodies were recovered, and 204 people went missing.
In August the next year, flash floods caused by a cloudburst in the Maldevta-Song-Baldi river system washed away large parts of the Maldevta town near Dehradun, affecting a 15 km stretch.
The Dharali disaster, experts say, shares features with the 2021 Chamoli tragedy.
“It is similar to Chamoli, and rainfall is just one factor. We need high-resolution satellite data or ground verification to know more,” HNB Garhwal University Professor Y P Sundriyal said.
The 2021 Chamoli disaster impacted an area spanning 20-22 km but did not affect the Alaknanda downstream.
A study published last month in the Journal of the Geological Society of India has confirmed a sharp rise in extreme rainfall and surface runoff events in Uttarakhand after 2010.
The research, led by Professor Sundriyal, shows that while 1998-2009 saw warming and low rainfall, the trend reversed post-2010, with central and western Uttarakhand witnessing more extreme precipitation events.
“Data from 1970 to 2021 shows a clear increase in extreme rainfall events after 2010,” Sundriyal told news agency.
The state’s geology compounds its risk.
Steep slopes, young and fragile formations prone to erosion and tectonic faults such as the Main Central Thrust make the terrain unstable. The orographic effect of the Himalayas forces moist air upwards, leading to intense localised rainfall, while unstable slopes magnify the risk of landslides and flash floods.