In a drive to curb glacial lake outburst floods, the Uttarakhand state government has set up a state‑of‑the‑art early‑warning system at Vasundhara Tal, the first of 13 high‑risk lakes flagged by the National Disaster Management Authority. Sensors will track water levels, satellite links will transmit data, and a real‑time dashboard will let authorities predict a breach minutes before it happens. "This initiative would prove to be a milestone in mitigating the GLOF threat," chief secretary Anand Bardhan told the press.
The state has 344 glacial lakes, but only 13 are considered high‑risk by NDMA and technical institutions. According to Vinod Kumar Suman, disaster‑management secretary, bathymetric surveys have already mapped six of those lakes—Saraswati and Vasundhara in Chamoli, Kedartal in Uttarkashi, and Mabang, Pyungru, and Syukti Yankti in Pithoragarh. Those surveys provide baseline data that the new sensors will refine.
The expedition, run by the Uttarakhand State Disaster Management Authority under the National GLOF Risk Reduction Programme, will continue until October 15. Scientists from the Central Building Research Institute in Roorkee and the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology in Dehradun will lead the installation, while the State Disaster Response Force, National Disaster Response Force, and Indo‑Tibetan Border Police provide logistical support.
Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami sent his best wishes to the team, stressing the need for constant vigilance over glacial lakes. The state plans to extend the same monitoring framework to the remaining 12 high‑risk lakes by the end of the year, aiming to create a comprehensive early‑warning network across the high Himalayas.
With the system now live, alerts will be issued to villages within a 10‑kilometre radius of Vasundhara Tal, and data will be shared with the National Remote Sensing Centre for wider analysis.