-The Telegraph Slushy water is eroding underground rock, accelerating the subsidence in parts of the town, geologist Piyoosh Rautela tells The Telegraph New Delhi: Piyoosh Rautela, a professional geologist, has scrambled over the past week to manage a crisis in Joshimath he had warned about 12 years ago — a spike in the central Himalayan town’s sinking rate triggered by the sudden release of underground water. The water discharge from a burst aquifer...
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Tectonic fault line that runs through Ladakh not inactive as was thought, moving north: Study -Esha Roy
-The Indian Express The study was conducted in Ladakh from the north of Ladakh’s capital, Leh, to the Tso Moriri lake, a distance of 213 kilometres. A low-intensity earthquake in 2010 near the village of Upshi in Ladakh, which falls on the fault line, can now be attributed to a thrust rupture, the study said. A RECENT survey has found that a tectonic fault line that runs through Ladakh, all along the...
More »Reconstruction work in Kedar Valley may lead to catastrophe, say experts -Gaurav Talwar
-The Times of India Dehradun: A technical committee formed by the State Disaster Management Department has raised serious questions over the reconstruction work undertaken at Kedarnath, which was devastated by flash floods in 2013. The committee, comprising scientists and civil engineers from agencies, such as Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, Geological Survey of India, and National Institute of Hydrology, has claimed that the newly built ghat on the confluence of rivers...
More »High-level solutions-Anil K Gupta
-The Indian Express The Himalayas need special policy attention, given their strategic importance and unique vulnerabilities The fifth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicted increased global warming, with a 1.5-2.0 degree rise in surface temperature by the end of the 21st century. This will not only make coastal regions vulnerable to sea-level rise but also make the sensitive Himalayan ecosystem more vulnerable. The increase in temperature will...
More »When expedience trumps expertise-Ramachandra Guha
-The Hindu Uttarakhand reiterates that our rulers have contemptuous disregard for the advice of the best scientists and would rather listen to contractors and builders to whom they are beholden for funds In the early 1980s, while doing research on the environmental history of Uttarakhand, I sometimes visited the library of the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology in Dehradun. Most of the journals in the library dealt with geology and earth sciences,...
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