Dehradun, India — More than 40 construction workers were missing after an avalanche in India’s Himalayan state of Uttarakhand on Friday following heavy snowfall, officials said.
Rescue teams dug for hours through heavy snow, Ridhim Agarwal of the state disaster relief force said in a statement, adding: “So far, 15 workers are safe while 42 are missing.”
The avalanche hit a construction camp in Chamoli district, burying the workers under snow and debris.
As soon as the weather conditions improve, high-altitude rescue teams will be deployed by helicopter to the scene, Agarwal added.
Deepam Seth, the state’s top police officer, said bad weather was hampering the rescue operations.
Indian Army/Handout via REUTERS
“It has been snowing with strong winds… The roads are completely blocked. We have deployed snow cutters to open the road,” he told broadcaster NDTV.
Uttarakhand chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said he was “saddened” by the incident and was monitoring the rescue operations.
Avalanches and landslides are common in the upper reaches of the Himalayas, especially during the winter season.
Scientists have warned, however, that climate change spurred by human burning of fossil fuels is making extreme weather events more severe and less predictable, as winter snow and ice melts faster and storm systems are super-charged over the Earth’s warmer oceans.
After a year of record emissions, the United Nations warned in 2024 that there was just a decade left to dramatically change policies around the world to prevent the worst impacts of climate change. In a report published in October, the U.N. said it was “climate crunch time” as greenhouse gases — which trap heat in the atmosphere and fuel more extreme weather events — had hit “unprecedented levels.”
The increased pace of development in the fragile Himalayan regions has also heightened fears about the fallout from deforestation and construction.
In 2021, nearly 100 people died in Uttarakhand after a huge glacier chunk fell into a river, triggering flash floods, and devastating monsoon floods and landslides in 2013 killed 6,000 people and led to calls for a review of development projects in the state.
