BENGALURU: The avalanche and flash floods in Nepal is a warning sign for more such catastrophes in the vulnerable Himalayan region with higher intensities in the days ahead, glaciologists have cautioned. Experts working in the Himlayan region have collated data to identify vulnerable spots where such catastrophes can occur, as the Central government is gearing up to hold a high-level meeting to ascertain locations where evacuations need to be done and other precautionary measures need to be taken.
Anil Kulkarni, Distinguished Scientist and glaciologist, Divecha Centre for Climate Change at the IISc, said more such incidents are likely because the Himalayan region is prone to earthquakes and landslides. Increased human activities and rapidly warming higher mountain regions are adding to such future scenarios.
The degradation of glaciers and permafrost slipping down are also concerns. There is also the bigger concern of hanging glaciers. Studies and data have revealed there are thousands of hanging glaciers in the Himalayas.
Another expert from Dehradun-based Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, an autonomous research institute for the study of geology of the Himalaya under the Department of Science and Technology, Ministry of Science and Technology, has cautioned that such incidents could happen in different regions – not just as a cascading effect but also because of the build up over a long period of time. What happened in Nepal was 3-4 times more intense than that in Kedarnath and Rishi Ganga. Although such incidents are not new in the Himalayas, the increase in their intensity now has emerged as a major concern.
Experts working with the Ministry of Earth Sciences said it is yet to be established whether there was a seismic activity that led to the disaster or whether a glacial burst due to an impact caused by the fall of the massive ice-slab lead to the vibrations. Glaciologists also pointed to the need for quick alert systems for such disasters and coordination between countries on a sharing knowledge pool basis. Experts admitted to the lacuna in information dissemination and said this incident has been flagged.
Experts said post-avalanche images have been captured by various satellites including those of ISRO, and the Chinese, US and European satellites. But the images shared by ISRO post-event were of poor quality. Experts said the most hyped NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) satellite images and alerts were also not available.
National Remote Sensing Centre sources said there are limitations with the polar sun-synchronous orbit satellite, which needs to be above the affected geographic location to get real-time images, which was not the case here. NISAR captures a location once in 12 days. ISRO is targeting the launch of the Earth-observation and geo-imaging satellite GISAT-1A (EOS-05) in September first week. It will provide near real-time imaging of the subcontinent, which could prove to be more beneficial for the purpose.
