Photo Essay on Glacier Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) affected areas of Rangpo (Sikkim): 06Oct2023

Map showing IMD rainfall gauge stations along the Teesta valley as well as important places

Images of Chungthang dam under construction in April2013, when I visited North Sikkim. This dam was commissioned in Feb2017 and became known as the Sikkim-Urja power project. It was the largest (1200MW) hydro-electric dam in Darjeeling-Sikkim Himalayas and collapsed in the early hours of 04Oct2023 under a glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) in South Lhonak glacier in North Sikkim.

I took these two images of Rangpo town two years apart, in October and from almost the same spot. The BEFORE and AFTER photos clearly show the devastation caused by the GLOF. The top photo shows IBM colony of Rangpo when it was a thriving market place and the lower image shows it as it was, after the GLOF which transformed it into a sand covered field.

Drone image of parts of IBM colony of Rangpo. Much of the shanty colony of tin homes were swept away by the Teesta river and the concrete structures buried under almost 15 feet of sand. The areas where the river never reached survived (Photo credit: Praveen)

IBM colony of Rangpo town. What was once a thriving market place with 500 - 800 shops, homes and smaller businesses is now buried under 10-15 feet of sand which Teesta river deposited during its brief but violent visit to this place.

An aluminum foil factory and a SUV lies partially buried at IBM market in Rangpo

A water tank on top of a double storeyed building juts out of the sea of sand at IBM while the building lies buried below. The whole area was a crowded market place as can be seen on the Google Earth image placed until it was transformed into a desert by the GLOF.
I cannot but marvel at the terrifying force of nature - to move and deposit almost 10-15 feet of sand everywhere the flood waters reached, in just a matter of hours - this has happened at Teesta bazar, Bardang, lower Mamring and here at IBM in Rangpo

Heavy construction material and equipment belonging to DRA construction company lie partly buried at IBM. The company (contractors of NHIDCL) had their offices and storage area here and other equipment are completely buried below the sand and cannot be seen. This area was also crowded with shanties and storage houses (godowns) made of corrugated tin sheets all of which were swept away. I spoke to a resident who also told me many, many vehicles had been taken away by the river when it invaded this premises.

The residents of this complex had a miraculous escape. Having come to know of the floods only after the first floor was engulfed by the waters, some twenty people were compelled to stay in the top floor of this building and wait for 13 hours until personnel of the Sikkim Fire Brigade rescued them.The ground floor and parts of the first floor are buried in sand.

Residents commence their recovery process by shoveling out sand from the first floor of their home even as the ground floor lies totally submerged in sand and flowers bloom on the terrace.

While heavier things were buried in the sand, the flood waters dumped tons of trash which floated and have to be cleaned up now.

GLOF refugees crowd around a place at Rangpo where relief material was being distributed. Immediately, we saw a lot of enthusiasm from the public while volunteering to distribute different types of relief material but bigger NGOs and agencies will have to move in to sustain this effort in the long term and rehabilitate these people who have lost every thing.
We visited a relief camp (of the several which are there) set up in a school at Rangpo where there were around a thousand GLOF victims.

Picking up the pieces. With everything gone, people living near the new bridge try and salvage what they can. (Photo credit: Praveen)

A long road to recovery. People who had walked away from their homes and the flood waters with only what they were wearing had returned to excavate their buried homes and dig out what ever little precious or usable things they could find.

Picking up the pieces.Women wash mud covered currency notes recovered from their lost homes at IBM in Rangpo.(Photo credit: Praveen)

A single hangar in a mud covered almirah is all that is left of the belongings of a victim at IBM colony, Rangpo (Photo credit: Praveen)

People who had lost everything especially valuable documents such as ID cards, bank papers and other important documents were foraging around in the still slushy, sand and mud for these items.

A GLOF victim ponders. I wonder what was going thru his mind as he was rummaging thru what was left of his home (Photo credit: Praveen)

Mud and slush marks on the building exterior and erosion on the opposite bank shows where the Teesta water level had reached during the GLOF on 04Oct2023. A wall of water almost 15 feet high smashed thru everything in its path - trees, bridges, infrastructure and roads.

The Indian army lost a number of soldiers on the night of the GLOF. Here excavators work to dig out their remains, equipment and material from a site near Bardang. Notice that even these large vehicles are almost totally inside a mound of sand which must be around 10 to 15 feet high.

Mr RN Pradhan and friends of Lower Mamring village.
This is another badly affected area in Rangpo. Though they managed to evacuate people from here on 04Oct2023 morning, they lost all their livestock to the flood waters as well as 8 to 9 tin shed homes here. There were a lot of trees next to the river bank which all got swept away.

Pots and pans at what used to be a home of a villager - Lower Mamring at Rangpo (Photo credit: Praveen)

Bedroom of a home at Lower Mamring on 06Oct2023. The whole area was covered with slushy sand/mud and walking was still difficult despite 48 hours of dry weather.

Locals at Mamring told us that the river had changed its course and was flowing much closer to their village now and also what was all too evident, that the due to siltation the Teesta was flowing at a higher level than earlier.

Slush and sand at Lower Mamring village.Locals informed us that there was a high tension power pylon or tower at this spot which also got swept away by the GLOF. Incidentally, the entire Rangpo town did not have any power from early morning on 04Oct2023 till 08Oct2023, perhaps due to pylons getting damaged or washed away or the damage to the hydro-electric power stations at Chunthang and Dikchu dams.

GLOFs will continue to occur more frequently and with the Himalayan rivers becoming pockmarked with more dams of all shapes and sizes, this is an all important event for us.
Some things worked:
  * The rudimentary alarm system of alerting people with loud hailers and sirens worked even at 2 -3 am and when it was raining heavily. Most people from the low lying areas were successfully evacuated in time - even tho the death toll may continue to rise as we unearth more bodies from under 10-15 feet of sand.
This evacuation also worked in North Sikkim where reaction time was much less.
  * Reaction from civil society and the government has been swift in delivering relief to victims but since almost all the affected people have lost everything including ID papers etc, rehabilitation needs to be sustained and long term. Maybe this will be a challenge, especially after the initial enthusiasm wears off and people get busy with the Dasain (puja) festivities
Somethings did not work:
  * Early warning for GLOF event was not there and if it was there it did not work.
  * Information about North Sikkim continues to be sketchy. There was no news whatsoever about survivors or casualties from the Sikim Urja dam after parts of it collapsed.
  * SANDRP has a lengthy article here
 An observation & a question mark?
Observation
 * The speed at which the GLOF advanced on 04Oct2023 morning was astonishing and its sheer size doesn't give anyone a second chance.
 * The only remedy maybe a reliable early warning system and an alert community. Regular drills in low lying population centers must be incorporated.
 Question mark
 *The GLOF and the dam burst resulted in the Teesta river carrying unimaginable volumes of water at high velocities with tons of debris such as tree trunks, boulders, motor vehicles, infrastructure pieces (such as the 14 bridges which collapsed).
Much of debris continuously and repeatedly impacted and collided with the downstream dams and bridges on the Teesta river. Will these structures be checked for safety?

 

My thanks firstly to my young friend Raghunath at Rangpo who spent the whole day with us, taking us to relief camps and other affected areas.
Thanks to the many victims for talking to us despite having endured such a catastrophic loss.
Thanks to Praveen bhai too with whom STH has done really good work in the past. We will  continue to work together to throw more light on disaster issues - so that people become more aware.

Praful Rao
Kalimpong district
Darjeeling- Sikkim Himalaya
savethehills@gmail.com
9475033744