Yellow alert was in place for possibility of avalanches in Uttarakhand

An avalanche that has trapped at least 25 Border Roads Organisation (BRO) workers in Uttarakhand’s Chamoli district on Friday came in the wake of warnings of the possibility of such an event issued by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) over the past two days, even as a fresh red alert has been issued for the next 24 hours.

On February 26, DRDO’s Defence Geoinformatics Research Establishment (DGRE) had issued a yellow alert on the possibility of an avalanche in Chamoli area, and on February 27, a similar alert was issued for Uttarkashi, Chamoli Rudraprayag, Pithoragarh, and Bageshwar areas, sources said.

On February 28, DGRE issued a red alert for Chamoli and an orange alert for the other areas. Red alerts have also been issued for most upper reaches in Himachal Pradesh, Kargil, and Jammu and Kashmir amidst forecasts by the weather department of heavy snow in parts of Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

The incident today took place near the border village of Mana, about five kilometres from the Badrinath temple. Some places in Uttarakhand experienced heavy to very heavy snow in the past 24 hours due to an active western disturbance.

According to reports, there were a total of 57 workers, of which 16 have been rescued so far and sent to the army camp near Mana for urgent medical treatment. Besides the BRO and Army, other organisations like the Air Force, Indo-Tibetan Border Police, National Disaster Relief Force, and the state government agencies have also been roped in for the rescue operations, even as the weather in the area remained inclement.

In the past, there have been a number of avalanche incidents in the Himalayas, which are prone to such natural calamities, causing loss of lives as well as destruction of infrastructure and property. The Army, ITBP, and BRO personnel are particularly vulnerable to such incidents, given their widespread deployment along the mountainous frontier and constant operational and logistical movements.

The snow equivalent of a landslide, an avalanche is a sudden sliding down of a huge mass of snow down the slope of a mountain, triggered by geological or environmental factors such as increased precipitation, excessive snow load, temperature differential between lawyers of snow, weakening of the snowpack, storms and earthquakes, or human intervention such as heavy movement causing vibrations, and construction.

Avalanches can be extremely dangerous and can fatally bury humans, animals, and habitats or sweep away structures, rocks and trees. Theoretically, avalanches can occur on any snow-clad slope and at any time of the year, though the frequency tends to be more during late winter or spring.

The Chamoli region has experienced several major avalanches in recent years. In February 2021, a deadly ice-rock mass avalanche in that area killed over 200 persons. Scientists from the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology analysed satellite images and seismic data of the avalanche zone and found that the region was seismically active before the disaster hit.

There was gradual growth of cracks near the crown of the weak wedge, and these further started to open up and led to successive advancement of a weak zone near the crown of the glacier. The seismic precursors were continuously active for two-and-a-half hours before the main detachment of rock-ice mass took place.

During October 2022, 16 people, including trainee mountaineers, were reported to be killed after they were hit by an avalanche in Uttarakhand. At least eight people died in an avalanche that was triggered after a glacier broke close to the India-China border in Uttarakhand in April 2021, while close to 400 persons were rescued.

Elsewhere, an avalanche swept through the popular ski resort of Gulmarg in Kashmir in February 2023, killing two Polish skiers, while in February 2022, an avalanche killed seven Indian soldiers in the Kameng region of Arunachal Pradesh, located at an altitude of 14,500 feet near the border with China.

In February 2016, an avalanche that hit an Indian military base in northern Siachen Glacier at an altitude of 19,600 feet, trapping 10 soldiers under deep snow, not only attracted considerable public attention but gave a chilling insight into the effects of being buried under snow.

Only one soldier, 32-year old Lance Naik Hanumanthappa Koppad, was found alive six days later and was rescued from 35 feet beneath the snow in -45°C. Though alive at the time of rescue and admitted to hospital, he died three days later due to multi-organ failure. A CT scan showed evidence of oxygen deprivation to the brain, and he had pneumonia in both lungs along with liver and kidney problems.

Geology and meteorology experts say that with global warming and climatic change, retreating Himalayan glaciers and associated melt along with unstable slopes are subject to triggering landslides and avalanches by rainfall, temperature variations, or by induced seismicity.

Snow, ice, and rock avalanches may threaten people and infrastructure downstream in mountainous areas worldwide. This is why the area requires constant monitoring of seismicity as well as glacier status. All mountain ranges across the globe that receive heavy snow are prone to avalanches, and there have been hundreds of incidents that have caused death and destruction.

DGRE and its predecessor Snow and Avalanche Studies Establishment has been monitoring the snow cover and mountain meteorology to assist military operations in the Himalayas, which also has a spin-off for the civilian populace.

Avalanche-prone sites have been mapped, and technology has been developed to not only forecast the possibility of an avalanche but also to mitigate such incidents through construction of control structures or artificial triggering.

Apart from avalanches, mountainous regions are also prone to landslides resulting from cloudbursts, heavy rain, or seismic activity, which at times have also blocked the flow of rivers and formed artificial lakes that are susceptible to bursting and causing floods downstream.