Mouth of lake widened to prevent another breach

DEHRADUN: The expert team, sent to the lake formed upstream Rishiganga river after flash floods hit Chamoli district on February 7, has succeeded in widening the mouth of the lake helping in faster draining out of water and preventing chances of lake burst, State Disaster Relief Force (SDRF) commandant Navneet Bhullar said on Monday.

Bhullar said the 30-member team, comprising scientists, personnel from SDRF and Indo-tibetan Border Police (ITBP), and porters, have succeeded in widening the mouth of the lake from 20 feet to around 35 feet. “In a daring effort, the team has widened the mouth of the lake in a very difficult terrain, which has increased the discharge from the lake. Due to this, the chances of lake burst or Chamoli-like tragedy happening again have been averted. And our team members are still camping there to try to widen the mouth further.”

“The special equipment, quick deployable antenna based on satellite communication, has been set up there and it is helping us to have real-time communication with the expert team,” he added.

The expert team reached Chamoli on Saturday and analysed the lake to find out ways of draining it out.

The team, formed by state chief secretary Om Prakash, includes scientists from the Uttarakhand Space Application Centre and Geological Survey of India, apart from officers from ITBP and SDRF. When inputs first came that a lake was forming again upstream Rishiganga, SDRF’S eight-member High Attitude Rescue Team, which included six people who had scaled Mount Everest in 2018 and Bhullar, was sent to the area for the ground survey. Rescue and search agencies recovered one more body on Monday, taking the death toll to 69.