Hridayesh Joshi - Death of a killer lake
Standing almost 4,000 metres above sea level on top of the Chorabari glacier, we look down at the remains of a lake. The memories of the havoc caused by the now-dried lake are hard to erase.
Photo by Hridayesh Joshi
On the morning of June 17, 2013, Chorabari lake breached its banks, bringing a massive flash flood -complete with debris and boulders – down the slope to the temple town of Kedarnath. It almost wiped away the town and then roared down the Mandakini – one of the main tributaries of the Ganga – and killed thousands in Uttarakhand. Many are still missing and several bodies are still being discovered in the higher reaches of the Himalayas.
A thin thread of water trickles down the middle of the lake bed and drains out through the broken embankments. The lake where the ashes of Mahatma Gandhi were immersed – leading to its official name Gandhi Sarovar – is now a collection of mud and sand. Until it burst its banks, Chorabari was one of 14 lakes spread over the Mandakini river basin, all above 3,700 metres. At a height of 3,960 metres, Chorabari lake was almost two kilometres upstream of Kedarnath.
The lake had originally formed from meltwater at the snout of the Chorabari glacier, but due to climate change, the glacier had retreated more than 200 metres, leaving a moraine of broken debris through which little water could flow from the glacier to the lake. Since the start of the century, if not before, the lake’s water has come from snow melt and rain.As a result, the 250 metres long and 150 metres wide lake – with a depth of 15-20 metres – had very different volumes of water at different times of the year.
Dehradun-based Wadia Institute of Himalayan Ecology (WIHE) has a monitoring camp at Chorabari glacier. The scientists at the camp had found that the accumulating water was adding 2-4 metres to the depth of the lake every year. The greatest increase was of five metres in 2010, when they took measurements in October that year... read more:
https://www.thethirdpole.net/2017/10/16/death-of-a-killer-lake/
Photo by Hridayesh Joshi
On the morning of June 17, 2013, Chorabari lake breached its banks, bringing a massive flash flood -complete with debris and boulders – down the slope to the temple town of Kedarnath. It almost wiped away the town and then roared down the Mandakini – one of the main tributaries of the Ganga – and killed thousands in Uttarakhand. Many are still missing and several bodies are still being discovered in the higher reaches of the Himalayas.
A thin thread of water trickles down the middle of the lake bed and drains out through the broken embankments. The lake where the ashes of Mahatma Gandhi were immersed – leading to its official name Gandhi Sarovar – is now a collection of mud and sand. Until it burst its banks, Chorabari was one of 14 lakes spread over the Mandakini river basin, all above 3,700 metres. At a height of 3,960 metres, Chorabari lake was almost two kilometres upstream of Kedarnath.
The lake had originally formed from meltwater at the snout of the Chorabari glacier, but due to climate change, the glacier had retreated more than 200 metres, leaving a moraine of broken debris through which little water could flow from the glacier to the lake. Since the start of the century, if not before, the lake’s water has come from snow melt and rain.As a result, the 250 metres long and 150 metres wide lake – with a depth of 15-20 metres – had very different volumes of water at different times of the year.
Dehradun-based Wadia Institute of Himalayan Ecology (WIHE) has a monitoring camp at Chorabari glacier. The scientists at the camp had found that the accumulating water was adding 2-4 metres to the depth of the lake every year. The greatest increase was of five metres in 2010, when they took measurements in October that year... read more:
https://www.thethirdpole.net/2017/10/16/death-of-a-killer-lake/
