12 JUL 1970 ALAKNANDA FLOODS DEVASTATION

Recent and past floods in the Alaknanda valley: causes and consequences

Article (PDF Available) in Current science 105(9):1209-1212 · November 2013 with 165 Reads

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1st Naresh Rana

16.53 · Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna Garhwal University
2nd Sunil Singh
3rd Y P Sundriyal
4th Navin Juyal

Abstract

Uttarakhand Himalaya in general and Alaknanda and Bhagirathi valleys in par-ticular have experienced one of the worst forms of disaster in recent times (Figure 1). Flash floods are common in the Himalaya, but the kind of destruction witnessed this time was unparalleled in recent history. Houses collapsed like a pack of cards and the roads and bridges swept away in the turbulent flood waters. Probably the worst causality of the cen-tury was the destruction of Kedarnath valley. According to the data published in various national dailies, nearly 4000 people were either killed or lost, 2232 houses were damaged, 1520 roads in dif-ferent parts of Garhwal were badly dam-aged and about 170 bridges have been washed away. According to economists, the tourism industry in Uttarakhand will suffer a loss of ~12,000 crore rupees, which is around 30% of the state's GDP. Over the years increased frequency and magnitude of flash floods in Uttara-khand Himalaya is worrying the inhabi-tants. Was it due to the commercial forest felling that was prevalent until around 1980s, or the recent rampant ter-rain tampering for hydropower projects? In order to appreciate the sensitivity of the terrain towards unusual weather events like cloudburst, let us look into the genesis of two major flash floods, viz. 26 August 1894 and 20 July 1970. These floods are reasonably well docu-mented 1–5 . The 1894 flood occurred well before the commercial forest felling ex-tended into the inner catchments of the Alaknanda, whereas the 1970 event oc-curred when the commercial forest fell-ing was at its peak in the Alaknanda valley. However, both floods owe their genesis to the breaching of dams created by landslides on the tributaries of the Alaknanda river, a common geomorphic expression during unusual rainfall events in the monsoon-dominated Himalaya 1,3 . On 6 September 1893, a tributary of the Alaknanda river called Birahi Ganga (Figure 1) was blocked by ~5000 million tonnes of rock mass that rolled from 900 m high valley flank. The debris blocked the river forming a lake 270 m high, 3 km wide at the base and 600 m wide at the summit 1,2 . It was estimated that the lake would have taken at least a year to fill. The dam would partially breach only after the water began to top-ple it, which would cause flash floods in the downstream till Haridwar. The untiring efforts of Pulford, the then superintending engineer and his team, particularly Pandit Hari Krishen Pant (district surveyor of Garhwal), helped to meticulously estimate the magnitude of downstream inundation. An excellent telegraph system was installed between Birahi Ganga and Haridwar for real-time monitoring and timely warning of the flood. Around May 1894, pilgrim traffic on the way to Kedarnath and Badrinath was diverted to the new pedestrian route

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COMMENTARY 

CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 105, NO. 9, 10 NOVEMBER 2013 

1209

Recent and past floods in the Alaknanda valley: causes and  

consequences 

Naresh Rana, Sunil Singh, Y. P. Sundriyal and Navin Juyal 

Uttarakhand Himalaya in general and 

Alaknanda and Bhagirathi valleys in par-

ticular have experienced one of the worst 

forms of disaster in recent times (Figure 

1). Flash floods are common in the  

Himalaya, but the kind of destruction 

witnessed this time was unparalleled in 

recent history. Houses collapsed like a 

pack of cards and the roads and bridges 

swept away in the turbulent flood waters. 

Probably the worst causality of the cen-

tury was the destruction of Kedarnath 

valley. According to the data published 

in various national dailies, nearly 4000 

people were either killed or lost, 2232 

houses were damaged, 1520 roads in dif-

ferent parts of Garhwal were badly dam-

aged and about 170 bridges have been 

washed away. According to economists, 

the tourism industry in Uttarakhand will 

suffer a loss of ~12,000 crore rupees, 

which is around 30% of the state’s GDP. 

 Over the years increased frequency 

and magnitude of flash floods in Uttara-

khand Himalaya is worrying the inhabi-

tants. Was it due to the commercial 

forest felling that was prevalent until 

around 1980s, or the recent rampant ter-

rain tampering for hydropower projects? 

In order to appreciate the sensitivity of 

the terrain towards unusual weather 

events like cloudburst, let us look into 

the genesis of two major flash floods, 

viz. 26 August 1894 and 20 July 1970. 

These floods are reasonably well docu-

mented

1–5

. The 1894 flood occurred well 

before the commercial forest felling ex-

tended into the inner catchments of the 

Alaknanda, whereas the 1970 event oc-

curred when the commercial forest fell-

ing was at its peak in the Alaknanda 

valley. However, both floods owe their 

genesis to the breaching of dams created 

by landslides on the tributaries of the 

Alaknanda river, a common geomorphic 

expression during unusual rainfall events 

in the monsoon-dominated Himalaya

1,3

.

 On 6 September 1893, a tributary of 

the Alaknanda river called Birahi Ganga 

(Figure 1) was blocked by ~5000 million 

tonnes of rock mass that rolled from 

900 m high valley flank. The debris 

blocked the river forming a lake 270 m 

high, 3 km wide at the base and 600 m 

wide at the summit

1,2

. It was estimated 

that the lake would have taken at least a 

year to fill. The dam would partially 

breach only after the water began to top-

ple it, which would cause flash floods  

in the downstream till Haridwar. The  

untiring efforts of Pulford, the then  

superintending engineer and his team, 

particularly Pandit Hari Krishen Pant 

(district surveyor of Garhwal), helped to 

meticulously estimate the magnitude of 

downstream inundation. An excellent 

telegraph system was installed between 

Birahi Ganga and Haridwar for real-time 

monitoring and timely warning of the 

flood. Around May 1894, pilgrim traffic 

on the way to Kedarnath and Badrinath 

was diverted to the new pedestrian route 

Figure 1.  Map showing the Alaknanda and Bhagirathi valleys; red polygons show the 

approximate location of flood damage. 

Figure 2.  Gohna lake during early 1930 (a) and 2008 (b). 

Page 1

COMMENTARY 

CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 105, NO. 9, 10 NOVEMBER 2013 

1210

which was constructed much above the 

anticipated flood level. Similarly, eight 

suspension bridges between Chamoli and 

Haridwar were dismantled in order to 

protect them from being washed away 

from the anticipated flood. As predicted, 

on 25 August 1894, water began to 

trickle over the dam and at midnight the 

dam was partially collapsed, sending 

flood surges downstream. The flood 

lasted until the morning of 26 August 

causing unprecedented damage to the 

property around Srinagar town; however, 

no loss of life was reported.  

 During July 1970 (after 76 years), the 

Alaknanda valley witnessed the second 

major flood. This was attributed to a 

cloudburst on the night of 20 July 1970, 

on the southern mountain front in the 

Alaknanda valley (between Joshimath 

and Chamoli). According to an estimate, 

flood transported about 15.9 × 10

6

tonnes 

of sediment within a day

6

. The catastro-

phe was so large that it wiped out the 

leftover of the 1894 Gohna lake (Figure 

2). In addition, a roadside settlement  

between Pipalkoti and Helong called  

Belakuchi in the Alaknanda valley was 

washed away along with a convoy of 30 

buses by the roaring Alaknanda river. 

However, around 400 pilgrims en route 

to Badrinath were saved due to the alert-

ness of a police constable who guided 

them to run uphill

7

. Besides, 13 bridges 

were swept away and far away at Harid-

war, around 10 km stretch of the Ganga 

canal was clogged with sediment and  

uprooted trees. This time again Srinagar 

town had to bear the brunt, virtually the 

lower town was completely destroyed by 

the flood.  

 This flood was widely debated in the 

country. There were people who were of 

the opinion that it was independent of 

deforestation. According to them, defor-

estation in the Himalaya has a trivial  

effect on erosion, run-off and thus flood-

ing. Although in minority, there were 

groups of people particularly the local 

inhabitants, who strongly believed that 

the flood owed its genesis to the large-

scale commercial forest felling in the 

preceding years. In fact, recent scientific 

studies support the suggestion that flood 

and deforestation in the Alaknanda  

valley are closely related

3,4

. The 1970 

Alaknanda flood was responsible for 

raising the ecological consciousness of 

the people that finally resulted in the 

birth of the now world-famous Chipko 

movement in 1973 (ref. 3).  

Figure 3.  a, Profile taken along the left bank of the Alaknanda river at Srinagar indicat-

ing the highest flood levels (HFLs) measured using differential GPS. b, Photograph o

f

ITI building partially buried under mud. c, Photograph shows the HFL of 1970 and 2013 

floods near ITI Srinagar (Garhwal). 

Figure 4.  a, Cross profile from river bed to Bhainswara village showing HFLs, b, Pho-

tograph of past 600 year flood deposit at Bhainswara. Dotted yellow line shows the 

height of the 1970 flood. c, Sediment deposited after the June 2013 flood (photograph 

taken on 20 June 2013). Note that the 2013 flood deposit over topped (~4 m) the 1970 

flood sediment.  

Page 2

COMMENTARY 

CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 105, NO. 9, 10 NOVEMBER 2013 

1211

Figure 5.  Extent of flood inundation around Srinagar (marked with red dashed line). 

 Summarizing the above incidences, it 

can be suggested the flood of 26 August 

1894 was a natural landslide-induced 

dam burst phenomenon and hence antici-

pated well in advance thus precious lives 

were saved. On the contrary, the 1970 

Alaknanda flood which caused large-

scale damage to the life and property was 

undoubtedly conditioned by the large-

scale commercial forest felling (anthro-

pogenically induced); hence we failed to 

predict it.  

 Geological evidences of past floods 

(e.g. slack water and palaeoflood deposits) 

are scanty; however, in some sheltered 

locations around Srinagar, Bhainswara 

and Devprayag (Figure 1), at least 1000-

year-old history of floods in the Alak-

nanda valley can be reconstructed

4,5,8

.

Wasson et al.

5

concluded that during the 

last 600 years, the floods were an out-

come of the natural dam bursts in the  

upper Alaknanda catchment and the 1970 

event was the highest in magnitude. But 

this record seems to have been broken by 

the recent flood. It was found that (i) the 

16 June 2013 flood deposits invariably 

overlie the 1970 flood sediment and  

occur at an elevation of 536 m at ITI to 

516 m at Bhainswara (Figures 3 and 4), 

implying that June 2013 flood was the 

highest in the Alaknanda valley at least 

during the last 600 years. (ii) Flood 

sediments are incised into two surfaces, 

e.g. at Bhainswara before the Alaknanda 

river attained its pre-flood base level, 

implying that the flood peak receded in 

two distinct pulses (Figure 4). On the  

basis of field observations, the vertical 

and lateral extent of flood is prepared 

(Figure 5), which can be used as a refer-

ence map for preventing any construc-

tional activity below this zone in a fast-

growing Srinagar town.  

 According to Wasson et al.

5

all of the 

large floods in the Alaknanda river 

catchment appear to be the result of land-

slide dam bursts rather than glacial lake 

bursts, and these are likely to continue 

and possibly worsen as the monsoon  

intensifies over the next century. The 

floods generated by the breaching of 

landslide-induced dams carry large 

amounts of sediment that may dominate 

the sediment yield in the Himalaya

9

. Ac-

cording to Korup

10

, the sediment yield 

associated with the breaching of land-

slide dams is second only to post-

volcanic eruption yields, but is greater 

than yields from glacier lake outburst. The 

past floods (at least 1894 and 1970) were 

associated with landslide-induced dam 

breaching; the current flood does not 

seem to fit into such a conventional cate-

gory. It has now been demonstrated

3,4

that deforestation coupled with cloud-

burst in the upper Alaknanda catchment 

was the major factor responsible for the 

1970 flood. Commercial deforestation in 

the region is banned since 1980; hence 

deforestation cannot be implicated for 

the recent flood. If the rivers were not 

blocked by landslide dams, because 

breaching of such dams not only sends 

short-lived, high-intensity flood surges, 

but also transports enormous sediment 

load into the lower reaches

9,10

, how was 

such a large quantity of sediment flushed 

by the Alaknanda river during 16 and 17 

June 2013? In case of the upper catch-

ment of the Mandakini valley (around 

Kedarnath) natural pile of sediment was 

available, which was left by the receding 

glaciers (moraines). When the cloudburst 

occurred, the sediments dominated by 

glacier boulders were lifted by the high-

density water flow and transported down 

the valley towards the temple town de-

stroying everything on its way. Shall we 

blame the debris flow or the obstruction 

caused by the recent pattern of construc-

tion that mushrooms around the temple? 

Over the years we have occupied every 

space for making commercial settlement 

around the temple defying the law of the 

nature. Figure 6

a shows how the Kedar-

nath valley looked during 1882 (ref. 11). 

When we compare it with the 2008 pho-

tograph, one can see the large number of 

commercial settlements in the Kedarnath 

valley (Figure 6

b). Coming back to the 

Alaknanda valley, in absence of large-

scale landslides during the recent flood 

and the glacier deposits located far up in 

the rain-shadow zone, it is pertinent to 

speculate that the sediments were locally 

generated by unnatural processes. Ac-

cording to an estimate, nearly 11,100 km 

of road has been constructed during 

2000–2012 (ref. 12) and currently 45  

hydropower projects are operational and

Page 3

COMMENTARY 

CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 105, NO. 9, 10 NOVEMBER 2013 

1212

Figure 6.  View of Kedarnath valley during (a) 1882 and (b) 2008. 

199 are at various stages of develop-

ment

13

. Considering the extent of  

human interference, it is likely that the 

terrain sustainability is precariously bal-

anced. A minor perturbation would have 

been enough to generate a cascading ef-

fect on the terrain instability. And the 

impetus was given by the unusual rain 

during 16 and 17 June 2013, which 

caused the Himalaya to respond violently 

against the unscientific human interfer-

ence.  

 Let us not blame nature alone; unusual 

rainfall events have been taking place in 

the Himalaya. But the Himalaya has not 

witnessed such clogging of its rivers by the 

concrete structures. Not only this, the re-

peatedly damaged banks (during 1894 and 

1970 flash floods) have been reoccupied at 

most of the places. In the past nature 

warned us not to venture into areas that 

are flood-prone. But we greed ignored 

such warnings; we occupied the river 

banks and had to pay dearly this time. It 

was nature’s fury indeed to begin with, 

however, the tragedy was amplified by 

human folly.  

1.  Holland, T. H., Report on the Gohna 

Landslip, Garhwal, Selections from the  

records of the Government of India in 

the Public Works Department: CCCXX-

IV(324), Office of the Superintendent of 

Government Printing, Calcutta, 1984. 

2.  Pal, S. K., Geomorphology of River Ter-

races along Alaknanda Valley, Garhwal 

Himalaya, BR Publishing Corporation, 

Delhi, 1986, p. 158. 

3.  Kimothi, M. M. and Juyal, N., Int. J. 

Remote Sensing, 1996, 17, 1391–1405. 

4.  Wasson, R. J. et al.,  J. Environ. Man-

age., 2008, 88, 53–61. 

5.  Wasson, R. J., Sundriyal, Y. P., Chaud-

hary, S., Morhtikai, P., Sati, S. P. and 

Juyal, N., Quaternary Sci. Rev., 2013, 

77, 156–166. 

6.  Kumar, G. and Shone, S. K., In Proceed-

ings of the Seminar on River Valley Pro-

jects, Roorkee University, Roorkee, 

1970, p. 7. 

7.  State of India’s environment: a citizen 

report. Center for Science and Environ-

ment, New Delhi, 1991, p. 166. 

8.  Srivastava, P., Tripathi, J. K., Islam, R. 

and Jaiswal, M. K., Quaternary Res., 

2008, 70, 68–80. 

9.  Brunsden, D. and Jones, D. K. C., In The 

International Karakoram Project, Vol. 1 

(ed. Miller, K. J.), Cambridge University 

Press, 1984, pp. 383–388. 

10.  Korup, O., Earth-Sci. Rev., 2012, 112, 

115–125. 

11.  Grieshbach, C. L., Geological Survey of 

India, Ministry of Mines, Government of 

India – photo archive, 1882–1883; http://

www.portal.gsi.gov.in/portal/

12.  Public Work Department Uttarakhand; 

http://www.pwd.uk.gov.in

13.  Uttarakhand Jal Vidyut Nigam; http://

www.uttarakhandjalvidyut.com

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT. We thank the 

Department of Science and Technology, New 

Delhi for financial assistance vide grant num-

ber SR/S4/ES-416/2009(G). 

Naresh Rana*, Sunil Singh and Y. P. 

Sundriyal are in the Department of Geo-

logy, HNB Garhwal University, Srina-

gar-Uttarakhand 246 174, India; Navin 

Juyal is in the Geoscience Division, 

Physical Research Laboratory, Navrang-

pura, Ahmedabad 380 009, India. 

*e-mail: naresh_geo@yahoo

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