With rescue efforts still underway, the disaster has swiftly become international news.
Media coverage has speculated about the cause of the devastation, with glacial lake “outbursts”, broken glaciers and avalanches all put forward as possible explanations.
In this factcheck, Carbon Brief unpacks how the events unfolded and speaks to scientists who suggest that a landslide was, in fact, the most likely primary cause.
And while further analysis is needed to assess the role of climate change, one scientist tells Carbon Brief that rising temperatures are causing “more of these big slope collapses”.
What happened?
According to police in Uttrakhand, the flood hit around 05:30GMT (11:00 local time). The torrent of water, ice and debris first destroyed the Rishiganga hydroelectric project – a small dam of roughly 13.2MW. BBC News reported that “the impact catapulted water along the Dhauliganga river” where it hit the much larger 520MW Tapovan Vishnugad hydropower
High resolution images available with NDTV indicate the clearest ever sequence of events leading up to the glacier burst in Uttarakhand's Chamoli on Sunday, which left 30 dead and over 170 missing.
Uttarakhand disaster likely caused by landslide, not glacial outburst, satellite images reveal
Uttarakhand disaster likely caused by landslide, not glacial outburst, satellite images reveal
Scientists studying satellite imagery from before & after the disaster say a chunk of glacier appears to have crashed down a mountain, triggering a landslide & subsequent floods.
Sandhya Ramesh 8 February, 2021 10:31 am IST Text Size:
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Coimbatore: International geologists and glaciologists studying satellite imagery say the cause of the Chamoli flooding disaster in Uttarakhand appears to be a landslide and not a glacial outburst as widely believed.
The first identification was done by Dr Dan Shugar of University of Calgary, who specialises in high altitude glacial and geologic environments. Shugar used satellite images from Planet Labs, captured before and after the disaster, to deduce that a landslide triggered the catastrophic flash floods along the