Examine how climate change has altered the risk profile of high-altitude Himalayan disasters such as GLOFs and snow avalanches.

A Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) is the sudden release of water from a moraine- or ice-dammed glacial lake. Warming-driven glacial retreat in the Himalaya is enlarging such lakes and destabilising snowpack, converting these once-rare mountain hazards into recurrent, high-consequence risks — as the South Lhonak Lake GLOF of October 2023 in Sikkim demonstrated.

Changed hazard profile of GLOFs

• Glacial retreat is creating new and expanding moraine-dammed lakes with weak natural dams, widening the pool of potentially breachable lakes that NDMA's GLOF guidelines seek to identify and monitor [1].
• Cascading, multi-hazard events: the October 2023 Teesta basin GLOF triggered a sudden surge that damaged bridges, stretches of NH-10 and the Chungthang dam, forcing Rs. 555.70 crore of central recovery assistance [2].
• Shifting flow paths mean historical flood-return periods no longer describe present risk, requiring fresh mapping of vulnerable lakes and downstream corridors [1].

Changed avalanche risk

• Erratic snowfall and warmer spells destabilise slopes, altering the timing and type of avalanches in high-altitude corridors, monitored through DGRE's network of snow meteorological observatories and automated weather stations [3].
• Affected areas — J&K, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh — include border regions, giving preparedness a strategic dimension of protecting roads and forward posts.

Rising exposure and response

• Hydropower projects, highways and settlements have expanded into hazard zones, so identical events now cause larger losses.
• The Centre has responded by sanctioning a dedicated GLOF mitigation project for Himalayan states and pushing NDMA-CWC-IMD-DGRE coordination [4].

Climate change has thus transformed Himalayan hazards from localised, episodic events into systemic, cascading risks with compounding exposure. The way forward lies in real-time glacial-lake early warning systems, controlled lowering of high-risk lakes, hazard-sensitive siting of infrastructure, and community-level drills — shifting disaster governance under the Disaster Management Act, 2005 from response-centric relief to risk-informed prevention.