Hydropower projects are wreaking havoc in the Himalayas

The deadly February 7 flash flood in Uttarakhand should not be blamed on ‘nature’s fury’ alone.

On February 7, a Himalayan glacier broke and caused a flash flood in the North Indian state of Uttarakhand. The avalanche smashed two hydroelectric dam projects and killed more than 200 people. A total of 205 people were reported missing in the disaster, but so far only 74 bodies and 34 separate body parts have been recovered from the debris. Local authorities have declared those still unaccounted for as “presumed dead” and initiated the process of issuing death certificates for them. Environmentalists who have been studying Himalayan glaciers for decades have linked this deadly disaster, like many others before it, to climate change, adding weight to the growing calls for aggressive climate action in the region. Attributing the blame for the flash flood solely or mainly to the ongoing climate crisis, however, risks obfuscating the failure of national and international agencies involved in construction projects in the region to act on the lessons learned from past disasters.