People living near the Tehri dam on the Bhagirathi river in Uttarakhand are in trouble. Villages on the slopes overlooking the reservoir are threatened by increasing landslides and those living
Water-related disasters include flood, windstorms, drought, water epidemics, famine and landslides. These combine with other water-related hazards such as pollution and chemical spills, aquifer
according to the National Highway (nh) 31A Bachao Committee (nhbc), traffic disruption, due to a landslide in August, continues on nh 31A in Kalimpong, West Bengal. nhbc claims that construction on the Teesta Low Dam Stage III project at 27th Mile led to the landslide. About 50 metres of the highway got washed away, hitting the local economy during the tourist season.
If soil quarrying is a threat in the terai, mining poses huge hazards in the hills of Kumaon. Soapstone or talc and magnesite quarries have been taking over commons for over two decades, depriving local people of large tracts of the forestland, pasture, watersheds and farming land.
Entire Himalayan region is vulnerable to rain-induced (torrential rainfall) hazards in the form of flash flood, cloudburst or glacial lake outburst flood. Flash floods and cloudburst are generally caused by high intensity rainfall followed by debris flow or landslide often resulting into blockade of river channels. The examples of some major disasters caused by torrential rainfall events in last fifty years are the flash floods of 1968 in Teesta valley, in 1993 and 2000 in Sutlej valley, in 1978 in Bhagirathi and in 1970 in Alaknanda river valleys.
power boost: To overcome power shortage, Pakistan has recently given approval to the country's five independent power companies to set up plants at an estimated cost of us $1 billion. These power
