India has 432 glacial lakes and are expanding, rapidly
These glacial lakes need to be monitored closely to avoid any catastrophe in the coming days
During the monsoon of this time starting from June,25 there have been excessive rains and subsequent massive ecological disasters including bursting of glacial lakes and cloud burst leading to widespread human loss, destabilisation and displacement of human beings with their houses destroyed and collosal loss of thousands of crores to public exchequer.
Though global warming has already led to glaciers melting and forming lakes on high streams of the Himalayas in various states of the country on the other hand posing tremendous risk of these lakes bursting during cloud bursts and other reasons. The tragic incident of the cloud bursts and subsequent puncture of the Gandhi Sarovar, originally the Chora Bari Lake which has created ecological havoc at Kedarnath and in Garhwal region killing thousands of people and collosal loss of nearly 50 thousand crores of rupees has not really sent warning signals to the Himalayan states.
The recent cloudburst incidents or breaking of the glacial lake whatever, that led to massive deluge at Dharali, Harshil and thereafter Tharali destruction on massive scale including ongoing ecological disaster in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, the biggest one of Kishtwar which claimed hundreds of lives and destruction on a gigantic scale are enough examples of the future warning signals of man made disasters and global warming consequences.
According to a latest report the picture in the fragile mountains and Himalayan states of the country is still worrisome and warrants immediate credible remedial measures.
The report furnished by “Glacial Lakes and Water Bodies” for June 25 says that Arunachal Pradesh has the highest number of these lakes (197). Lakes from Ladakh (120), Jammu and Kashmir (57), Sikkim (47), Himachal Pradesh (6) and Uttarakhand (5). Therefore, there is a need for their intensive monitoring.
According to the Glacial Lake Atlas-2023, 432 lakes (out of 681 located in India) are expanding.”
Quoting the above report the Central Water Commission (CWC) has stated in its new monitoring report that more than 400 glacier lakes in India are rapidly expanding which is a matter of concern for India. This is a worrying situation for India. The report states that these glacial lakes need to be monitored closely to avoid any catastrophe in the coming days. Moreover, It has also been revealed that the total area of glacial lakes in India has also increased rapidly in the last decade.
According to the above report their area ( glacial lakes) was 1,917 hectares in 2011 which has increased to 2,508 hectares in 2025.
