The flash flood in high Himalayas, which has claimed lives and wiped out two hydroelectric plants on the Ganga, should be a grim reminder of the mistakes we continue to make. There is no rocket science here about why this devastation happened. The Himalayas are the world’s youngest mountain ranges, prone to erosion and landslides and unstable because of high seismic activity.
This is compounded by the sheer madness — I will explain why I say this — of development, with hydropower projects being built back to back. On top of this, climate change and its resultant warming of glaciers and unseasonal snow and heat are exacerbating conditions in the already fragile ecosystem. On February 7, 2021, the people of Reni village — the birthplace of India’s environmental consciousness as this is where the women stopped the felling of trees — say they heard a loud bang.
Within minutes the muddy deluge gushed down damaging the 13.2 MW Rishiganga hydropower project and then washing away the under-construction 520 MW Tapovan-Vishnugad project downstream. It is not clear (as yet) if the glacier melted; or there was unseasonal snow that melted; or that it was a combination...Continue Reading
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