Teesta Terror

You get a visceral hit, when a region you love well is hit by a 'natural' disaster. For a number of years I followed the rampant development of hydroelectric schemes in Sikkim's Teesta valley. Sikkim (NE India) is a tiny Himalayan state and my group considered the tensions between tourism (keeping the rivers 'untamed') and the drive to develop cheap, reliable electricity to power wider Indian industry. After five times the usual rainfall this month, Lhonak Lake overflowed. This inevitably caused a dam in the Teesta valley to partially collapse, washing away roads and bridges. The floods have resulted in at least 14 deaths, with more than 100 folk still missing. Many tourists are effectively marooned (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/05/india-floods-death-toll-lhonak-lake-injuries-missing-sikkim). These events are, of course, awful. The potential, however, for much more damaging flooding exists in this region. There's massive amounts of water in the ice of the Himalayas. Melting produces some impressive, not especially stable lakes. Elevation changes in Sikkim are obviously dramatic. Consequently, this is a landslide-prone zone. Given climate change and the fact that this area is subject to earthquakes, one can only hope for the best. 'Natural' disasters are now more likely almost everywhere but Sikkim has the 'ingredients' for a cataclysmic event!