NEW DELHI – Thousands have been evacuated from villages in a north Indian state bordering China following an alert that a melting glacier had formed a gigantic lake in adjoining Tibet, officials told AFP.
“We have sounded a red alert in the border district of Sumdoh because if this artificial lake grows then it will flood our rivers,” Himachal Pradesh state government spokesman B.D. Sharma said by phone from the provincial capital, Shimla.
Other officials from Himachal Pradesh, which borders Tibet, said eight villages had been evacuated after satellites discovered the lake, currently 38 kilometres (23.5 miles) long, 2,640 feet (800 metres) wide and 99 feet deep.
“Some 12,000 people have been moved to higher grounds,” an official from Sumdoh said.
Sharma said satellite images suggested the melting glacier was pumping water into the now-forming lake off Tibet’s Perchu river.
He said China had conducted a controlled blast to minimise the threat from the artificial lake to Perchu, which flows directly into Himachal’s Spiti river.
The Himachal Pradesh state administration said it was taking precautions against flash floods.
“A high alert has been sounded on both banks of Satluj river from Sumdoh downstream in the wake of a controlled blast reported in the artificial lake formed in Tibet,” it said in a statement.
“People have been advised to shift to safer places as a precautionary measure as danger of overflow in Satluj river cannot be (ruled out) due to (the) controlled blast.”
Spiti ultimately merges with Satluj, which flows down into India’s rice-bowl state of Punjab.
