[HN Gopher] Satellites Reveal Cause of Uttarakhand Flood That De...
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Satellites Reveal Cause of Uttarakhand Flood That Devastated
Hydroelectric Dams
Author : ystad
Score : 132 points
Date : 2021-02-13 13:25 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.scientificamerican.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.scientificamerican.com)
| Pfhreak wrote:
| Does anyone else find it strange that the headline focuses
| entirely on the damage to dams and not, say, the people or homes
| or communities destroyed?
| actuator wrote:
| > The disaster draws attention to the controversial hydropower
| projects
|
| Why is this the subheading of the article? All the speculation
| regarding the actual flood is a glacier breaking away and falling
| 2km on valley floor triggering landslides and sudden water
| release. So, why choose to focus on something which many
| initially incorrectly identified as the reason for destruction.
|
| I am not saying we should not focus on this and the highway
| construction happening there, as there actually are some valid
| concerns about them; but seems like a poor thing conflating these
| two.
|
| Also, most of these new dams in the upper reaches are not the
| massive water holding barrages that cause ecological destruction.
| Most of them hold little or no water. They are constructed on the
| route of a river to funnel water through a tunnel to the turbines
| that is used to generate power.
| silexia wrote:
| Big oil has been funding anti - nuclear and anti - hydro
| efforts for years.
|
| The truth is that far more people die from pollution from
| fossil fuels than have ever died from nuclear or hydro.
| zdragnar wrote:
| That is rather self fulfilling, though. We produce and use
| significantly more fossil fuels than we have nuclear or hydro
| power.
|
| If the whole world was run by hydro and nuclear, and fossil
| fuels were relegated to somewhere between non-existent or
| hyper-regulated, it wouldn't be a stretch to imagine the
| reverse as well.
| ashutoshgngwr wrote:
| https://youtu.be/Jzfpyo-q-RM
|
| Edit: Further reading if you prefer it to videos.
| https://sites.google.com/view/sources-nuclear-death-toll/
| erentz wrote:
| It's compared on a deaths per unit of energy produced
| basis. Kind of like how we compare stats per capita between
| countries of different sizes.
| WrtCdEvrydy wrote:
| I believe those figures are per-capita as well.
| idlewords wrote:
| Further in the article it explains that communities often form
| around the remote dams, bringing people closer to the rivers,
| and increasing the body count when something like this happens.
| temp-dude-87844 wrote:
| The article makes the assertion that communities often form
| around remote dams, and perhaps this is true for dams in the
| desert or dams on the plains, but maps and photos of this
| region reveal that the rivers here are deeply incised among
| steep mountains, there's essentially no arable land, and
| villages have been clinging to cliffs just above the rivers
| for as long as humans have settled here. There's simply
| nowhere else for them to live, and they've lived there long
| before any dams.
|
| The people who died in this disaster died because a surge of
| water and mud and debris rushed down the river valley from
| high up in the mountains. You can't arrest a debris flow [1],
| you either have to hope it doesn't happen, or engineer at
| great cost that it doesn't happen, or you pre-emptively
| relocate to a place where you won't be caught in it. These
| are hard choices, but the nature of the problem is simple,
| and traces back to topography..
|
| [1] You can arrest a debris flow with a very large embankment
| of your own, preferably if there's no lake behind it; water
| is not compressible, so a debris flow into a reservoir will
| always risk overtopping the dam with a frighteningly large
| wave. But, putting dry dams in a narrow river valley is much
| more complex than dams behind which water can collect.
| Retric wrote:
| [1] is correct but the process drastically reduces the
| energy and peak flow rates. Assuming the dam survives it
| makes a large difference for people down stream.
|
| Visually it's hard to notice but even just 1 foot matters
| in a flood.
| actuator wrote:
| But that has nothing to do with the dam itself. That should
| be regulated by the state authorities. Living close to rivers
| in such fragile places is not a good idea.
|
| Back in 2013, roughly the same place witnessed ~6000 deaths
| in floods.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_North_India_floods
| pashsdk27 wrote:
| The biggest reason why most people prefer to live near the
| rivers in this region is water. A lot of the villages up in
| the mountains do not have running water and you have to
| hike a few kilometers down the valley to get water from
| hand-pumps and small streams. That was the case when I last
| visited my grandparent's village in Uttarakhand. Even my
| hometown which is one of the largest towns in the region
| has water problems. It gets worse the higher you go in the
| Himalayas.
|
| Landslides are also a major factor as the mountains are
| extremely fragile. I've witnessed several such small
| landslides during my trips that often block the small
| mountain roads. They are very common.
|
| There is pretty much no usable agricultural land and most
| villages rely on money from people working outside the
| region or small scale cattle domestication. Upper Himalayas
| is a rough terrain and so not many people live there.
| Living closer to the rivers is much better. Even better is
| living closer to the major roads that often are closer to
| the rivers.
|
| Things are slowly and steadily improving these days. The
| regulations are also being more strictly enforced. Though
| I'm quite concerned that many similar disasters will happen
| in the future due to climate change. :/
| danans wrote:
| Based solely on my observations traveling in the area, the
| topography is so extreme (very steep cliffs not far from
| the river banks) that there is little option but to live
| near the river.
|
| I'm sure there are more and less safe places on the river
| bank, but there aren't many places a safe distance from the
| river that aren't also thousands of feet up in elevation.
| rriepe wrote:
| The buried lede: A landslide blocked a river and water backed up.
| koheripbal wrote:
| It's a generally poorly written article, with a lot of
| speculation and short on facts.
|
| I particularly dislike the way it starts "Sunday, an flood..."
| Which Sunday? What date?
| newyorker2 wrote:
| The moment I observe an article overzealously relying on
| direct quotes and anecdotes of everyone the 'reporter' was
| able to get their hands on, it's tab close time.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Like the news articles that have done nothing but gather
| random tweets from people? Journalism has become a joke of
| itself
| maxerickson wrote:
| If you are going to use quotation marks, it should be a
| direct quotation, not an ungrammatical paraphrase.
|
| It's also talking about the most recent Sunday, so perfectly
| sensible, though I agree it is not the best form for the
| statement.
| yostrovs wrote:
| Scientific American went straight downhill in the last few
| years, particularly devoting itself a great deal to social
| issues that have nothing to do with it.
| deadalus wrote:
| Scientific American has had problem with women before.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_American#Controver
| s...
| [deleted]
| idlewords wrote:
| The real buried lede is that no one is sure of the actual
| cause.
| wffurr wrote:
| Maybe. The landslide is clear but the mechanism by which the
| landslide may have caused the flood is unclear. A team of
| geologists is hiking to the area to investigate more closely.
| temp-dude-87844 wrote:
| This is hardly above the nebulous drivel of the articles that
| popped up during the week of the flood, just dressed up with a
| professional veneer. It manages to sneak in a clickbait headline,
| and despite the promise, you don't get to find out the cause,
| just three contributing theories. Also, did you know dams are
| bad?
|
| The terrain in these Himalayan states is rough. Steep river
| valleys, no flat land, and towns clinging to cliffsides. They're
| vulnerable to floods every day. If anything, dams alter the risk
| profile dramatically, increasing the impact of the rarest of
| floods but greatly reducing their frequency. And, they generate
| soot-free, low-carbon electricity from these rivers that are
| hardly ecological havens: they're the upper tributaries of some
| of the most polluted rivers on the planet.
|
| Altering the natural environment is always a trade-off we should
| examine and justify. But in this instance, they add up. Without
| the dams, an identical flood would've resulted in at least as
| many casualties, and that will continue to be the case until you
| build even bigger dams whose reservoirs provide more cushion
| against freak floods, melt, and landslides, and/or until you
| banish people from their homes in towns that dot these deep
| gorges at a great socioeconomic cost.
|
| The environmental risks are an inseparable part of the region.
| You can't wish the possibility of all landslides away, the
| glaciers can misbehave as long as they exist (and we want them to
| exist), and the topography and the settlement patterns will
| remain vulnerable to floods. Only abandonment, damming, or
| relocating the towns to flattened ridgelines stand a chance to
| improve outcomes for its people, and all of these come at high
| cost and involve major trade-offs.
| robocat wrote:
| > hardly ecological havens
|
| Ecologically the harshest environments are also the most
| vulnerable to small changes. Plants and insects at the edges of
| survivability only need what we might consider a minor change
| to push them to extinction. Slow, low, small growth is often
| boring and ignored by us. Individual mountains often have
| unique ecologies and species because they are "islands". And
| sometimes the harshest environments are the most biologically
| pristine because there are not many humans around (farming is
| probably our most ecologically destructive activity).
|
| I don't know anything particular about the Himalayas, but I am
| just asking you take care before jumping to conclusions.
| sradman wrote:
| The Feb 07 flood in India [1] was first thought to be a burst
| glacial lake but:
|
| > Other reports have suggested that satellite images imply that a
| landslide may have triggered the events... In satellite images, a
| 0.5 mi (0.80 km) scar is visible on the slopes of the Nanda
| Ghunti, a peak on the southwestern rim of the Nanda Devi
| sanctuary, a wall of mountains surrounding the Nanda Devi massif.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Uttarakhand_flood#Cause
| londons_explore wrote:
| I was under the impression that while the exact time of a
| landslide is hard to predict, it is relatively easy to predict
| that an area of land might suffer landslides. (ie. by looking
| at the angle of every layer of rock and looking for any that
| are near their critical slippage angle)
|
| Surely that is checked for all land surrounding any hydro
| project, and the land stabilized with piles or grout before the
| hydro project starts?
| danans wrote:
| It appears that the side of a 6000m (20000 ft) mountain
| collapsed.
|
| Clearly this has happened many times through the geological
| history of the Himalaya - which is arguably the most extreme
| and dynamic mountain range on the planet - but on human
| timescales this is an extreme outlier event, so very hard to
| plan for.
| latchkey wrote:
| I spent 2 years on a motorbike all over Northern Vietnam /
| Cambodia / Laos. The number of hydro dams being built by these
| countries (and China) in the region along the Mekong is insane.
|
| They already feel the effects from this... in the summer the
| rivers dry up to the point that you're driving a motorbike across
| dry lake beds and in the winter (aka: rainy season) there is
| massive landslides and the dams break and wash away villages.
|
| From what I can tell, it is less about blaming the dam and more
| about the thirst for power and complete disregard for how we go
| about getting it. It is a complete eco disaster.
| blacklion wrote:
| I've spent 12 months of last 10 years (~1 month/year) at same
| region, on motorbike, too. I could confirm your observations.
|
| BTW, 95% of these dams are Chinese one and exports electricity
| to China, not to be used by locals. China build hospitals and
| some roads for this, which is good, but all these projects
| doesn't have any ecological expertise in it. And China DOESN'T
| CARE of course.
|
| It is new colonialism, really.
| vagrantJin wrote:
| > China build hospitals and some roads for this, which is
| good, but all these projects doesn't have any ecological
| expertise in it. And China DOESN'T CARE of course.
|
| But isn't the honesty refreshing? They don't come with guns
| or bibles or any notion of superiority. Just preying on the
| weak willed. I call that good business.
| latchkey wrote:
| You're getting downvoted, for good reason. You're wrong on
| at least one point. "Any notion of superiority".
|
| One thing I witnessed first hand in Laos is that China is
| building a very long road south. As they come in and build
| dams and the roads, the construction workers also move
| their families into the region. They buy up land from
| locals and then they bring a whole new set of expectations,
| including driving prices up.
|
| The notion of superiority is what is driving all of this.
| "We are better than you, we will build you a dam, buy up
| all your land, give you some of the electricity and take
| the rest for ourselves."
| vagrantJin wrote:
| I don't give two left feet and a chicken for
| downvotes/upvotes. What matters is discussion. At least
| to me.
|
| On the point of "notion of superiority" I will admit the
| phrasing is incorrect. Every group thinks they are better
| than those not in their group from your local book club
| to whole nation states.
| haltingproblem wrote:
| I used to like reading newspapers from across the spectrum. They
| had information and facts leavened with reasoned opinions,
| balanced perspectives. Reading the news media these days is no
| different than reading some rando on Twitter. Tragic it has come
| to do this.
|
| The NY Times had a truly abominable series of articles on these
| all focusing on the "negligence" of the current government on
| building dams. Take this one for dated 2/8: "Before Himalayan
| Flood, India Ignored Warnings of Development Risks" [1]
|
| Somewhere at the end:
|
| _" Exactly what caused the latest flooding was not clear as of
| Monday night, with the Indian government saying a team of experts
| would visit the site to investigate. Ranjeet Rath, the head of
| India's geological survey, said initial information suggested a
| "glacial calving at highest altitude." Calving is the breaking of
| ice chunks from a glacier's edge."_
|
| Dams had absolutely nothing to do with this tragedy. Some folks
| on Twitter are claiming that Dams might have reduced casualties
| downstream by modulating the flow but every single article seems
| to have an anti-dam agenda. I too hate the aesthetic of dams
| because they are monolithic and massive and alter the landscape.
| There is something primal within us which clamors for unaltered
| nature. I also don't like the eyesore of the gas-fired power
| plant a two miles away from where I live. But I don't try to warp
| every tragedy and lay it at the feet of the power plant to
| further my aesthetic biases.
|
| [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/08/world/asia/india-flood-
| ig...
| actuator wrote:
| NYT might be a paragon of journalism for American issues but it
| is hardly a good source for news about countries like China or
| India.
|
| I have been following their international coverage for some
| time and what they have mastered is the art of misleading
| through omission. Whether that is intended or just by virtue of
| hiring journalists and op-ed writers from the same echo
| chamber, that I don't know. It is smart in a way actually, as
| they rarely write outright lies. What they will do instead is
| just cover the points of one side, keep doing it through
| several articles and someone following NYT will have a very
| different idea of an event.
|
| I am not sure how NYT is gauged inside China as I can't read
| their social media but I am surprised NYT is treated like
| sacrosanct by Indians with their critical articles of the
| establishment being widely shared there. Just look at the
| coverage of the farmer protests in NYT, Guardian etc.
|
| So when these same platforms complain about Facebook eating
| their lunch and allowing fake news, I have no sympathy for them
| as their holier than thou attitude for their own content is
| just off putting.
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