Uttrakhand Disaster: How and What Happened

 



Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat has said the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Director told him that the Chamoli disaster was caused by sliding of a part of a mountain after receiving snowfall two-three days ago.

"ISRO director, on the basis of a report by the organisation, told me this place is not an avalanche-prone area and the images from two-three days ago showed that there was no glacier at all on the mountain."

"After receiving some snowfall a couple of days ago, a part of the mountain slid and caused lakhs of metric tonnes of snow to fall down at once causing the disaster," he added.

The Chief Minister presided over a meeting over Chamoli disaster on Monday evening which was attended by officers of Army and Indo Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), state officials, and ISRO scientists.

Earlier in the day, Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) scientist Dr LK Sinha had said that a hanging glacier in Uttarakhand's Chamoli may have broken away from the main glacier which caused the damage.

In the Tapovan-Reni area of Chamoli District of Uttarakhand on Sunday, massive flooding in Dhauliganga and Alaknanda rivers damaged houses and the nearby Rishiganga power project.


What is the difference between glacier and snow?

Glaciers comprise snow and ice, compressed into large masses. Glaciers form as snow remains in a single place long enough to transform into ice. Glaciers advance and recede, meaning they flow, like a very slow moving river.


What is it called when a glacier melts?

The processes that remove snow, ice, and moraine (accumulation of unconsolidated debris (regolith and rock), sometimes referred to as glacial till) from a glacier or ice sheet are called ablation. Ablation includes melting, evaporation, erosion, and calving. Glaciers melt when ice melts more quickly than firn (crystalline or granular snow, especially on the upper part of a glacier, where it has not yet been compressed into ice) can accumulate. As ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland melt, they raise the level of the ocean.


What is an avalanche? 

An avalanche (also called a snowslide) is an event that occurs when a cohesive slab of snow lying upon a weaker layer of snow fractures and slides down a steep slope.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Educate Girls To Fight Climate Change: Malala

Image
  Keeping girls in school and taking young climate leaders seriously are keys to tackling climate change, Nobel Peace Prize winner  Malala  Yousafzai said on Friday. Speaking to a virtual panel,  Malala , 23, said educating girls and young women, particularly in developing countries, would give them a chance to pursue green jobs and be part of solving the climate crisis in their communities. "Girls' education, gender equality and climate change are not separate issues. Girl's education and gender equality can be used as solutions against climate change,"  Malala  told an online event by British think-tank Chatham House. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, some 130 million girls worldwide were already out of school, according to the United Nations cultural agency UNESCO, which said more than 11 million may not return to classes after the pandemic. "When we educate girls ... they can become farmers, conservationists, solar technicians, they can fill other green job...
Read more

Post 7% Cut In Emissions,Experts Warn Of Rebound

Image
  Coronavirus restrictions led to a record 7% fall in global carbon emissions last year, but the drop will be short-lived unless efforts to phase out fossil fuel are intensified, a study by scientists in the journal Nature Climate Change said. The study by scientists from institutions in Australia, Britain, France, Norway and the United States, confirmed preliminary estimates from May last year that global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels fell by 7%, or 2.6 billion tonnes, to 34 billion tonnes. On Tuesday, the International Energy Agency said global CO2 emissions dropped by 5.8% in 2020. The study in Nature Climate Change analysed daily CO2 emissions across 71 countries and six economic sectors, using data from daily electricity use and mobility tracking services. To keep the global temperature rise to 1.5-2 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) this century, emissions must decrease by 1-2 billion tonnes a year, the United Nations says. "When fossil fuel infrastructure is put in...
Read more

Now, a low-cost portable machine to grab plastic bags

A team of students has developed an innovative portable and lowcost machine, which efficiently collects discarded plastic bags. The machine, created by six final year engineering students from the Sona College of Technology in Salem, Tamil Nadu, is currently undergoing rigorous trials on the streets, within the municipal limits of the steel and textiles town. "The plastic waste collecting device is mounted on a sturdy frame with an infra-red sensor attached to a mobile vacuum chamber. It is capable of sensing plastic on the roads and attract it," project leader TV Kishore Kumar said.The idea and the execution. The Idea and execution Kumar, along with classmates N Javeeth Khan, R Akash, S Lokeshwar, R Dinesh Babu and R Ilavarasan, were inspired to create this device, after a call by the PM to make India plastic-free. The team integrated a shredder as an add-on accessory, which shreds the collected plastic bags. This shredded material was then mixed to concrete as a replacement...
Read more