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About 50 bodies were recovered and significant infrastructure was destroyed during flooding in India’s northeast this week, with dozens missing and over a thousand tourists stranded in the Himalayan state of Sikkim, according to authorities.
A glacial lake overflowed and flooded the Teesta River in Sikkim, a mountainous region between Bhutan and Nepal, on Wednesday, after a cloudburst of sudden, extreme rainfall, authorities said. There were 27 confirmed deaths in Sikkim, according to state government figures released Saturday, and at least 23 bodies were recovered downstream in neighboring West Bengal state, the Sikkim government said.
India flash floods leave over 100 people missing: In photos, videos
The flooding washed away the Sikkim Urja hydroelectric dam at Chungthang, more than a dozen bridges, a sewerage treatment plant, and a highway and other roads. Ongoing rescue operations have moved almost 2,500 people to safety, while thousands are in relief camps, the state government said.
Helicopter evacuation and supply drops will commence as soon as the weather permits, the Sikkim Information and Public Relations Department said in a video update on Friday evening.
As of Friday, at least 1,471 tourists were stranded, the Ministry of Defense’s Public Information Bureau in Gangtok, Sikkim’s capital, said in a statement. All stranded tourists “are safe, and nothing adverse has so far been reported,” the state tourism office said in a Thursday statement. It also advised all tourists heading to the area to postpone their travel.
The Himalayan region is prone to flooding. In July, about 100 died in heavy monsoon flooding in India’s Himachal Pradesh state, about 630 miles northwest of Sikkim. Last year, 1,500 died in what Pakistan’s climate change minister called a “biblical flood” in that country. The year before, a flood killed dozens in India’s Uttarakhand state.
Experts say these events are increasing in frequency and severity because of climate change.
Floods caused by glacial lake bursts are likely to increase in coming decades, with 200 identified glacial lakes “deemed dangerous” due to their bursting risk, a report from the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development warned in July.
This week’s disaster also may have been exacerbated by the region’s hydroelectric infrastructure, which was commissioned in 2017, Sikkim Chief Minister Prem Singh Tamang said in a written summary of a news conference on Friday.
Preliminary reports suggested that “sub standard quality practices followed during the construction of the Chungthang Dam” resulted in “the flood situation taking a catastrophic turn,” he said, while announcing that an inquiry would be held into the flood.
The Indian government on Friday approved almost $5.4 million for disaster relief and was mobilizing a team to undertake damage assessment, its Public Information Bureau said in a statement. The National Disaster Response Force, Indian Air Force and Army personnel with search and rescue equipment had been deployed, the bureau said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government was “standing shoulder to shoulder with Sikkim,” it said. In the immediate aftermath of the flood on Wednesday, Modi said on social media platform X that “I pray for the safety and well-being of all those affected” by the “unfortunate natural calamity.”