44 per cent of India’s disasters happened in Himalayas between 2013 and 2022

Aksheev Thakur

New Delhi March 1

Between 2013 and 2022, the Himalayan region in India accounted for 44 per cent of all the disasters reported in the country. Floods, landslides and thunderstorms had the lion’s share, according to a report published by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE).

There were 192 incidents of floods, landslides and thunderstorms in the region.

“In fact, the cloudbursts and torrential rains experienced in the region in 2023 are curtain-raisers to a future that is already upon us, and will become more pronounced with every passing year,” the report stated.

Between April 2021 and April 2022, 41 incidents of landslides were recorded across the country of which 38 happened in the Himalayan states, with Sikkim witnessing the highest number at 11.

Head Kiran Pandey of CSE’s Environment Resources Unit said, “A close look at the data shows an uncomfortable trend. In recent decades, these disasters are occurring more frequently and getting severe, causing a significant loss of life and damage to property.”

The rise in surface temperatures in the upper reaches of the Himalayas is causing melting of glaciers.

“The rise in average surface temperatures in the Himalayas is causing glaciers to melt rapidly and retreat at an accelerating rate. During 2010-19, glaciers in the region lost a mass of 0.28 metre of water equivalent (m we) per year in comparison to 0.17 m we per year in the period 2000-09. The Karakoram Range, which was known to be stable, has also started showing a decline in glacier mass, losing 0.09 m we per year during 2010-19,” the report said.

It also mentioned that the ice-melt from the glaciers is forming glacial lakes across the Himalayan range. The number of such lakes in Uttarakhand and east of Himachal Pradesh has increased from 127 in 2005 to 365 in 2015. The increasing frequency and ferocity of cloudbursts is causing these lakes to overflow or burst their banks and cause havoc downstream.

“Overall, the Himalayas have already lost more than 40 per cent of their ice, and are likely to lose up to 75 per cent by the end of this century. This is making the vegetation line in the Himalayas shift upwards at the rate of 11 to 54 m per decade. With 90 per cent of Himalayan agriculture being rainfed, this will make it impossible to sustain the livelihoods of the people who now inhabit the Himalayan region, and endanger the lives of those in the plains who depend on its waters,” the report added.

Head Kalachand Sain of Dehradun-based Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology said that stopping development in the Himalayas was not the solution. “This development needed to be done properly with guidelines prepared in consultation with all stakeholders. To mitigate disasters, we need to understand their root cause and get everybody —government, locals, experts, journalists — involved and interested in addressing them,” he added.