Abstract
On 16 and 17 June 2013, high-intensity rainfall (>400 mm) in different parts of the state of Uttarakhand caused devastating flash floods and triggered widespread landslides incurring heavy losses to the infrastructure, agricultural fields, human and animal lives, roads and widespread destruction of natural resources. Such a magnitude of disaster was perhaps not witnessed by the region at least over the last 100 years. Thus, this disaster can be considered as an extreme climatic event of the century. The extent and intensity of the tragedy can easily be visualised by the fact that all the famous shrines of the Uttarakhand state, located in high mountainous, snow-bound areas such as Badrinath (3133 m asl on Alaknanda River), Kedarnath (3584 m asl on Mandakini River), Gangotri (3140 m asl on Bhagirathi River), Yamunotri (3291 m asl on Yamuna River) and Hemkund Sahib (4433 m asl on Alaknanda River), were badly affected by this extreme fury of the nature.
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Acknowledgement
Authors are grateful to the Director of Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, Dehradun, Uttarakhand for providing the necessary facility. Thanks are also given to the scientific staff of Centre for Glaciology for their help and support during field work. We are also thankful to the Department of Science and Technology, Ministry of Science, Government of India, for financial supports to carry out this work.
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Mehta, M., Dobhal, D.P., Shukla, T., Gupta, A.K. (2016). Instability Processes Triggered by Heavy Rain in the Garhwal Region, Uttarakhand, India. In: Singh, R., Schickhoff, U., Mal, S. (eds) Climate Change, Glacier Response, and Vegetation Dynamics in the Himalaya. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28977-9_12
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