Rescue crews worked through the night to find survivors trapped under the rubble. Most of the missing are workers from two hydroelectric projects in the Chamoli district of Uttarakhand, which were hit by the avalanche.
Footage from Sunday’s disaster shows a rapidly moving wall of water and rocks descending a narrow gorge and breaking through the dam at the smaller hydroelectric project before flowing downstream and wiping out trees and people.
About 2,500 people in 13 villages were cut off by the ensuing flash floods, Ashok Kumar, senior official at Uttarakhand Police, said on Monday.
Rescue efforts on Monday focused on clearing sludge and debris from a tunnel at the larger state-owned hydroelectric project. About 30 to 35 workers were apparently trapped in it.
According to Reuters, teams managed to drill 150 meters of the 2.5 km long tunnel, but the large amount of debris slowed the progress. On Sunday, rescuers rescued 12 people trapped in another smaller tunnel at the same location, according to Kumar.
Others have pointed to a high level of construction along the rivers of the state, which in recent years has linked an increasing number of hydroelectric dams, projects and infrastructure, such as roads and new developments.
“It was a one-off incident. The glacier broke, and with … debris everyone came down and flooded the power project here,” said Kumar, the Uttarakhand police officer.
Sunday’s floods brought back memories of a similar devastating incident in 2013, when the state was hit by what the region’s chief minister called a ‘tsunami in the Himalayas’. According to Reuters, nearly 6,000 people lost their lives in the floods.
Widespread damage
Prime Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat said at a press conference on Sunday that Uttarakhand had seen a terrible disaster and that the state was expecting a significant loss of human lives and infrastructure.
It was after 10am local time when a piece of the Nanda Devi Glacier broke apart, and according to authorities, water is flowing down into the Dhauli Ganga River Valley which is located more than 500 km (310 miles) north of New Delhi .
The bulk of the destruction was on two hydropower projects. The Rishiganga Power project – a small dam of 13.2 megawatts – has been completely washed out in the flood, the Indian Ministry of Power said in a statement on Monday.
The state prime minister said 35 people were working at the plant when the waters hit, and that about 29 to 30 people were missing. Rising waters have forced authorities to issue urgent evacuation notices to people who lives further down the Alaknanda River.
As flash floods swept into the valley, it caused major damage to a second and much larger 520 megawatt hydro project under construction about 5 kilometers from the other project. About 176 workers worked on the Tapovan Vishnugad hydropower project site, which has two tunnels and is state-owned by NTPC, India’s largest power supplier.
More than thirty workers could get stuck in the second tunnel, he warned. Rescuers struggle to reach them, but the surrounding road is covered in rubble.
A witness told Reuters that the avalanche of dust, rock and water came without warning.
“It came very quickly, there was no time to warn anyone,” Sanjay Singh Rana, who lives at the top of the river in the rainy town of Uttarakhand, told Reuters by telephone. “I felt that even we would be swept away.”
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has sent a message of support following the disaster. “I’m watching the unfortunate situation in Uttarakhand,” he tweeted.
“India stands with Uttarakhand and the country prays for everyone’s safety there. Constantly spoke to senior authorities and received notifications about the implementation, rescue and relief operations of the NDRF (National Disaster Response Force).”
CNN’s Akanksha Sharma and Rishabh Pratap reported.