What triggered the disastrous glacier melt in Uttarakhand many are wondering? How a glacier can let give during winter and more so when the region has received scant snowfall. Unsubstantiated reports suggest that locals in the vicinity of the affected valley heard what sounded to be explosives going off at the time of the incident. There are also ex-servicemen in the region who can easily tell between an explosive going off or ‘noise’ from landslides/avalanches.

Enter the dragon? This is not something outlandish, from what is known of what happened to a lake in Tibet on the Himachal Pradesh border on 2005. The gushing waters emptied into the Sutlej river across the border and brought about devastation downstream. Sixteen year later, an encore has unfolded with the Alaknanda river valley taking a hit. A road from here goes to Barahoti, the same region which the dragon has raised a claim right for from the 1950s.

Published on February 14, 2021