JOSHIMATH, India (AP) – Hundreds of rescue workers were roaming muddy ravines and valleys in northern India on Tuesday in search of survivors after a part of the Himalayan glacier broke. trigger a devastating flood that left at least 31 people dead and 165 missing.
One of the rescue efforts is focused on a tunnel at a hydroelectric plant where more than three dozen workers have been out of contact since the flood occurred on Sunday. Lifeguards used excavators and shovels to remove mud from the tunnel overnight to try to reach workers as their hopes of survival faded.
The disaster was triggered when part of the Nanda Devi mountain glacier erupted on Sunday morning. Scientists have gone to the site to investigate what caused the rupture and flooding, possibly an avalanche or a release of accumulated water. Experts say climate change may be to blame, as warming temperatures lower glaciers and make them unstable around the world.
Flood water, mud and stones roared down the mountain along the Alaknanda and Dhauliganga rivers, breaking dams, sweeping bridges and forcing the evacuation of many villages, turning the field into what looked like a lunar landscape. ash-colored.
The flood devastated a small hydroelectric project and damaged a larger one downstream in the Dhauliganga. Emerging from the Himalayan mountains, the two rivers meet before merging with the Ganges River.
Residents of several villages perched on the slopes of the valley first noticed the power of the wall roaring with water.
Rajeev Semwal heard a sound similar to the bubbling clouds and then saw the normally blue waters of the Alaknanda turn muddy.
“I understood that the disaster had occurred,” said Semwal, a resident of Tapovan village in Uttarakhand state, where the power plant is located.
Semwal’s brother-in-law and younger brother worked at the power plant. His younger brother was inside the flooded tunnel and nothing has been known since.
Most of the missing were people working on both projects, part of many plants the government has been building on various rivers and their tributaries in the mountains of Uttarakhand state.
The ecologically sensitive Himalayan region is prone to flooding and landslides.
More than 6,000 people are believed to have died in floods in 2013, caused by the heaviest monsoon rains in decades.