At least 41 people have been killed and almost 100 remain missing after heavy rains caused a Himalayan glacial lake in north-east India to burst its banks.
The flooding occurred along the Teesta river in Sikkim’s Lachen Valley and was worsened when parts of a dam were washed away. The missing include 22 soldiers, officials said.
Over 2,000 people were rescued after Wednesday’s floods, the Sikkim state disaster management authority said, but the search continued for others.
Eleven bridges were washed away by the floodwaters, which also hit pipelines and damaged or destroyed more than 270 houses and swept away an army camp.
Vinay Bhushan Pathak, the state’s top bureaucrat, said that 26 people had been taken to hospitals with injuries, while nearly 3,000 tourists were stranded in the flood-hit areas along with 700 taxi drivers.
“We are evacuating them through helicopters provided by the army and the air force,” he said.
Several towns, including Dikchu and Rangpo in the Teesta basin, were flooded, and schools in four districts were ordered shut until Sunday.
The army is providing medical aid and phone connectivity to civilians in the areas of Chungthang, Lachung and Lachen in north Sikkim.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s office said in a statement that the government is supporting state authorities in the aftermath of the flooding.
The design and placement of the six-year-old Teesta 3 dam were controversial from the time it was built, part of an Indian push to expand hydropower energy.
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Local activists argued that extreme weather caused by climate changes makes dam-building in the Himalayas too dangerous, and warned that the dam's design did not include enough safety measures.
The dam's operator, and local agencies responsible for dam safety, did not respond to requests for comment on Friday.
Lhonak Lake has been rising quickly over recent years, as the glaciers that feed it melt faster due to climate change. A 2021 study by researchers in India, the United States and Switzerland warned that rising waters, and the steep slopes that surround the lake, made a catastrophic flood more likely.
The deadly flood was the latest to hit north-east India in a year of unusually heavy monsoon rains.
Nearly 50 people died in flash floods and landslides in August in nearby Himachal Pradesh state, and record rains in northern India killed more than 100 people over two weeks in July.
On Friday, hundreds of rescuers from the army and national government worked their way through slushy debris and the fast-flowing river Teesta water in still-flooded towns looking for survivors.
