This Sunday i.e. 7th of February the North India experienced a terrible shock wave due to glacier break down. Around 20 people were killed and over 150 are reportedly missing. A large portion of Nanda Devi glacier broke off in Uttarakhand’s Chamoli district triggering avalanche and a deluge in the Alkananda river system. The glacier disaster is a reminder of the monsoon floods and landslides in Uttarakhand in 2013, which killed 6,000 people and led to calls for a review of development projects in the state, particularly in isolated areas like those around the Rishi Ganga dam. The Sunday’s occurrence not only caused a havoc but also, washed away hydroelectric stations and five bridges. It also swept away roads and forced authorities to evacuate villages. Initially that the cause was a chunk of glacier breaking off into a river, and later that the trigger may instead have been a phenomenon called a glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF). Experts have pointed out that the hundreds of power projects and widening of roads is playing havoc with the ecologically fragile region which is also earthquake-prone.
Amidst the heartbreak the whole nation is going through, inappropriately irrelevant videos are going viral over the internet. A video of a huge mass of snow sliding down a mountain is being circulated on social media with the claim that it shows the glacier burst in Uttarakhand’s Chamoli on Sunday. The 30-second video is being shared with a caption in Hindi which translates to, “Video of glacier breaking off in Uttarakhand’s Chamoli”. Onlookers can be heard hooting with excitement in the clip. A few people claim that this is the first video of the Uttarakhand avalanche and some have found similar videos here and there. Although the Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has claimed that this video is of an avalanche at Kapuche Glacier Lake in Nepal in January 2021. No lives were lost in the incident. AFWA in its thorough research has found On January 11, the user uploaded a longer version of the same video on his Instagram handle and YouTube channel, stating that it is an avalanche at Kapuche Lake in Nepal. The description to the YouTube video says, “Huge Avalanche ( ) at Kapuche Lake Sikles. The Kapuche Glacier lake is located at an altitude of 2546 meters from sea level. It lies inside the small village Sikles of Kaski district in the Annapurna region. This lake has been declared as the lowest altitude glacier lake in the world. We had to spend overnight at lake in order to catch this moment and it eventually paid off we were filming ourselves and all of sudden avalanche started, rest is history”.
