Uttarakhand’s glacial lakes are expanding, glaciers are thinning continuously

The SDC Foundation has released the Uttarakhand Monthly Disaster, Extreme Weather Event and Accident Based Report for April 2024. This report states that glacier lakes are continuously expanding. The report states that hundreds of glacial lakes in the Himalayas are expanding.

Glacial lakes are expanding

According to the SDC Foundation report, hundreds of glacial lakes in the Himalayas are expanding. According to the report, incidents like glacier lake explosions and glacial lake flood outbursts have become common in the Himalayas. Long-term satellite imagery covering the Himalayas has shown that out of the 2,431 glacial lakes larger than 10 hectares in area identified in 2016 and 2017, 676 glacial lakes have expanded significantly since 1984.

Glaciers are constantly thinning

The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) said that 130 of these 676 lakes are within India. Of which 65, seven and 58 lakes are located in the Indus, Ganges and Brahmaputra river valleys respectively. The report says that there is a danger of such lakes bursting, which can cause devastation due to floods in the lower areas. According to the report, research done around the world has shown that glaciers around the world are constantly retreating and thinning.

Rivers can bring natural disasters

In the year 2023, the central government presented a scary report in Parliament. In this report, it was told that the glaciers of the Himalayas are melting rapidly at different rates. Along with this, it has also been told that due to the ongoing climate change, the Himalayan rivers can bring natural disasters at any time. According to the report, due to climate change, there can be trouble from the Himalayas from Kashmir to the north-eastern states.