Amit Shah Sets Zero-Casualty Goal as ISRO Data Flags Expanding Himalayan Glacial Lakes

Union Home Minister Amit Shah has set a zero-casualty target for disaster management, saying India's approach has shifted from relief and rehabilitation to a framework built on risk reduction, early warning and the prevention of loss of life.

Speaking while chairing the third meeting of the Governing Body of the National Institute of Disaster Management in New Delhi earlier this week, Shah said the country's disaster philosophy had been transformed under the Narendra Modi government. He cited recent disasters where advance warnings and coordinated responses helped avert deaths, and called for a whole-of-government approach in which disaster management is no longer the preserve of a handful of agencies. He also noted that climate change is likely to raise both the frequency and intensity of disasters.

The ambition faces a difficult test in the Himalayas, where warming temperatures are reshaping glaciers, lakes and mountain ecosystems. In April 2024, ISRO released findings based on four decades of satellite imagery, from 1984 to 2023, showing that glacial lakes across the region are expanding rapidly.

Of 2,431 glacial lakes larger than 10 hectares identified in the Himalayan region, 676 had grown significantly since 1984. As many as 130 of these are within India: 65 in the Indus basin, 58 in the Brahmaputra basin and seven in the Ganga basin. Nearly 89 per cent of the expanding lakes, or 601, had more than doubled in size.

Many sit at extreme altitudes. A total of 314 expanding lakes lie between 4,000 and 5,000 metres, while 296 are above 5,000 metres. Most are moraine-dammed, held back by loose rock and sediment left by retreating glaciers, making them prone to failure from avalanches, landslides, earthquakes, heavy rain or continued melting. ISRO highlighted the Ghepang Ghat lake in Himachal Pradesh, which grew 178 per cent between 1989 and 2022, from 36.49 hectares to 101.30 hectares.

India's Himalayan region holds more than 9,000 glaciers, one of the largest concentrations outside the Polar Regions, and they feed river systems that support hundreds of millions of people downstream.

The risks are already documented. The June 2013 Kedarnath disaster in Uttarakhand, triggered by extremely heavy rain and flash floods, killed nearly 5,000 people. In February 2021, a rock and ice avalanche in Chamoli district sent floods through the Rishi Ganga and Dhauliganga valleys. In October 2023, a Glacial Lake Outburst Flood from South Lhonak Lake swept down the Teesta basin in Sikkim, damaging infrastructure and communities. A similar event in Rasuwa, Nepal, caused by a mud and ice avalanche, killed nearly 1,400 people.

India's record on early warning is strong in some areas. Cyclones that once killed lakhs now cause casualties in double digits, aided by satellites and coastal Doppler radars. The Indian Tsunami Early Warning System, set up after the 2004 tsunami, has operated without a false warning. The NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar satellite, NISAR, can map changes in the Earth's crust every 12 days.

Scientists say satellite monitoring is only a first step. Real-time warning systems, hazard mapping, evacuation drills and resilient infrastructure in vulnerable Himalayan states would be needed to close the distance between a warning and action on the ground.