Bengaluru: The dam site area of Teesta-III is “completely devastated” and it will take at least 10-20 days to assess the actual loss of lives and property caused by the collapse of the dam in Chungthang in Sikkim, local activists on the ground in the affected areas of Sikkim said in an online press conference on Thursday, October 12. It is not a natural disaster as the state government claims, but a man-made one, they added.

The Teesta-III dam was swept away on October 4 due to the bursting of the South Lhonak glacial lake upstream. The event caused widespread devastation downstream of the dam. As per some estimates, nearly 40 people have lost their lives and nearly 80 are missing.

At the press conference, experts on dam safety said that an early warning system and better operation of the dam, among other factors, could have decreased the devastation caused by the disaster. Activists have planned “National Climate Strikes” on October 15 to express solidarity with the people of Sikkim.

On October 12, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) declared in a statement that the Automated Weather Station it had installed on September 16 in South Lhonak Lake had stopped working on September 19. It now recommends that the GLOF Risk Mitigation Programme be “extended to high-risk glacial lakes in India”.

“Damsite completely devastated”

On-ground relief work is being conducted by the government; however, north Sikkim as well as the epicentre of the dam site – where Chungthang town is – are “completely devastated”, said Gyatso Lepcha, a member of the Affected Citizens of Teesta (ACT), an organisation of the indigenous Lepcha community which has been opposing the construction of large dams in the state for a decade now. Towns downstream and near the river have been “washed out”, Lepcha added.

On October 3, a possible glacial landslide or cloudburst (the reason is still being debated) triggered a Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) of the South Lhonak Lake just over 60 kilometres upstream of the Teesta-III dam at Chungthang. The reservoir of the dam was already full and the flash flood that followed after the GLOF swept away the Teesta-III dam in minutes on the night of October 4. According to PTI on October 11, nearly 40 people lost their lives and around 80 more are missing. However, inclement weather, the report said, is hampering rescue operations. On Thursday, the Indian Air Force evacuated 461 tourists from flash flood-hit towns in North Sikkim, a senior official told PTI.

Also Read: Human Failure One of Many Reasons for Sikkim Disaster; Lots of Work, Planning Ahead: Local Scientist

Man-made disaster, not natural

“Lakes don’t burst just like that,” Lepcha said, in the online press conference on October 12. “That’s not a natural phenomenon… climate change is not a natural disaster, but a man-made one…governments have to accept this.”

Scientists and researchers have repeatedly identified the South Lhonak glacial lake as among the few that are under threat of a GLOF event. However, experts told The Wire that the warnings were never heeded.

Lepcha also called for unity and solidarity among people living in the Himalayas to stop building dams in the area.

“This is the biggest dam failure in India’s history, and there is no noise at all,” he exclaimed. “We need to come together as one voice to save the Himalaya – even take to the roads if necessary, because it is time for that now,” he added.

“We believe the Teesta has reclaimed her glory and we still believe that if we still continue ignoring the environmental and ecological challenges given our fragile ecology and topography… today it was in the form of the Teesta, tomorrow it will be something else… they will come back and hit us…then the whole extinction of the Sikkim Himalaya is on our doorstep.”

Sikkim chief minister P.S. Tamang. Photo: X/@@PSTamangGolay

Questions about dam operation and safety

Himanshu Thakkar, coordinator of the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP) said that dams act as a force multiplier in times of disaster and that this was observed during the 2013 Uttarakhand floods also. The quantum of destruction increases when there is a dam and it is people at the sites of these dams who lose their lives, and the highest economic loss occurs in the areas where the disaster occurs, Thakkar said.

As per studies, the South Lhonak glacier is one of the fastest retreating glaciers in Sikkim and the South Lhonak Lake “has become the largest and fastest-growing in the state”.

Despite this, the spillway of the Teesta-III dam was not built to accommodate excess water from a GLOF. If the gates of the dam were opened in time, the reservoir would have been empty and the excess water from the GLOF may have been contained by the dam. The first alarm was raised by an Indo-Tibetan Border Police officer at 10:30 pm on October 3 and the information was passed to his commander in Gangtok immediately and to Chungthang by 10:50 pm. However, the gates of the dam were still not operated in time. Similarly, the existence of an Early Warning System would have decreased the impacts of the GLOF and the dam may even have been saved, and the downstream destruction averted, Thakkar commented.

Dam operation is crucial under such circumstances. However, the Dam Safety Act of 2021 focuses only on the structural safety of the dam and not operational safety, said Thakkar. The latter is extremely important and needs to be included in the Act, he added. Similarly, information about dam safety must be in the public domain and there is a dire need to include independent dam experts in committees rather than relying on government officials, he commented.

“Safety audit [of dams] should be a public exercise,” commented Manshi Asher, while adding that there are 500 to 900 glacial lakes in the upper Sutlej alone. Asher is co-founder of Himdhara, an NGO operating in Uttarakhand that has also been witnessing several mega infrastructure projects at the cost of the environment and local people and their livelihoods.

Newly installed cameras stopped working

Meanwhile, on October 12, the NDMA announced that it had installed two solar-powered twin-camera Automated Weather Stations on two “high-risk” glacial lakes – the South Lhonak and Shako Cho – in upper Sikkim on September 16. However, per the release, the equipment at South Lhonak “ceased transmission” after September 19. “An ITBP contingent checked the equipment on September 28 as physically stable, but it could not be revived,” it noted.

A Times of India report on Friday quoting anonymous sources noted that the GLOF and resulting devastation in Sikkim has prompted the government to come up with “a comprehensive GLOF Risk Mitigation Measure”. The framework for this will be discussed at a high-level meeting in the coming week, it reported.

On October 11, the National Green Tribunal – India’s apex green court – also took up a suo moto case against the government of Sikkim, the public sector hydropower company NHPC and Sikkim Urja Limited (which operated the Teesta-III dam) based on a news story published by East Mojo that detailed why the breaching of the dam is a big deal. East Mojo reported that the tribunal’s notice said that its action “demonstrates its concern for environmental issues and safety in light of the recent dam breach incident in Sikkim.” The hearing has been scheduled for October 20.