The Army has averted a major disaster by carving out a channel through a landslide in Zanskar Valley in Kargil. The landslide, that created a 15-km-long artificial lake with more than 30 million cusecs of water, was threatening to burst anytime and posed a grave danger to nearby villages. The landslide occurred in January at a height of more than 13,000 feet. In a major operation named “Phutkal” lasting more than one-and-half months, Army engineers formed a channel to let water flow downstream by carrying out controlled blasts, ensuring that the situation is now under control.
Given the enormity of the risk, the Government had declared it as a ‘national crisis’ in the first week of February after a preliminary assessment. The operation was carried out jointly by teams of National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), the Army and Indian Air Force (IAF). The adverse weather conditions with temperatures dipping below minus 30 degrees Celcius and wind chill factor made it extremely difficult to work in the rarefied air.
Since all the roads to Zanskar were blocked due to snow, heavy machinery had to be airlifted and IAF and Army carried out more than 500 helicopter sorties to ferry equipment weighing more than 50 tons, officials said here on Thursday. Elaborating on the enormity of the crisis, they said the massive landslide took place over a major tributary of Zanskar River, located 100 km east of Padam in January and caused complete blockage of water in the river, resulting in accumulation of more than 30 million cubic meters of water and formation of a 15-km-long lake, along the river.
There was apprehension that the landslide would burst and trigger a major catastrophe as the additional water gushing into Zanskar River would cause a major flood and submerge nearby villages.
The Jammu & Kashmir Government alerted the Central Government and National Crisis Management Committee declared the situation to be a ‘national crisis.’ An expert committee under the aegis of NDMA was asked to carry out technical assessment of the situation and prepare an action plan for execution, to avert any crisis.
After aerial and ground reconnaissance of the landslide, coordinated by the Army from leh, it was decided to conduct controlled blasting and create a breach in the landslide, so as to facilitate controlled flow of water through it, thereby mitigating the threat of flooding and sudden breach.
The Army was asked to perform the lead role and coordinate activities for creating the breach and a composite task force comprising specially selected and trained personnel from the Army, IAF, NDMA and State Government was formed to execute the task. As Zanskar and leh are cut off from the rest of the country due to snowfall, the entire operation had to be sustained by air. The IAF and Army helicopters conducted more than 500 sorties involving 300 hours of flying and ferried 38 tons of load in extremely hazardous and demanding flying conditions.
A small camp was established on a ledge on the rock face near the landslide site once the equipment was delivered. The task force then worked for more than 30 days in extremely cold conditions to remove debris from the nearby areas to construct a 75-metre-long, two metre deep and two metre wide channel by controlled blasting, using 175kg of explosive, over five days. This artificial channel was created in the last week of March and water finally started coming out in an uninterrupted manner from the artificial lake, officials said adding the flow is being closely monitored.