When the Mountain’s Glue Thaws: What Peru and Switzerland Teach the Himalayas: Santa believes high-altitude Himalayan rock faces are eternal and indestructible, ignoring thermal permafrost risks. Banta draws compelling parallels from the 1970 Huascarán tragedy in Peru and the 2017 Piz Cengalo collapse in Switzerland to show how rising temperatures melt the internal ice-glue of mountains worldwide, proving why automated multi-sensor early warning is a baseline necessity.
Avalanche
The Hungry Monster: The Deadly Science of Valley Entrainment
The Snowball on Steroids: Why Entrainment is the Deadliest Word in Himalayan Hazards: Think a mountain slide stays the same size as it falls? Think again. Banta uses a sticky dough ball analogy and forensic data from the 2021 Chamoli and 2017 Swiss Bondo catastrophes to expose the terrifying science of entrainment—the process where a falling rock-ice mass scours riverbeds and swallows boulders, multiplying its volume five-fold into an unstoppable fluid battering ram.
Regulate high altitude pilgrimage
In the evening hours – on the trek route to Hemkund Sahib – glimpse of the crowd of tired but satisfied people slowly stepping down to reach the road head is commonplace. Some of these are in groups, but then some prefer travelling solo and maintain distance. Others like to gossip and share experiences – […]
Avalanches around Kedarnath
In September 2022 avalanche activity was observed repeatedly in the mountains to the north of Kedarnath in Rudraprayag district of Uttarakhand. Presence of pilgrims and others in large numbers facilitated pictographic and video records of these, and stories projecting these as posing a major hazard to the township and pilgrims became viral on social media. A […]
Early warning for Dhauliganga-like disasters
Scientific research, howsoever promising, requires gestation time for practical application and the same stands true for avalanche warning in Himalayas. The journalists are therefore advised to report scientific research outputs with caution.
Avalanche threat: Real or hoax
While it is still a long way for the costal areas to recover from Tauktae, and Yaas cyclones that hit western, and eastern coast of India in quick succession, possibility of an avalanche has been expressed by some vernacular newspapers in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand. And believe me, this avalanche threat is not based […]
Marching ahead from Sumna
With the bodies of all the 18 persons missing in the avalanche incidence of April 23, 2021 around Sumna in Chamoli district of Uttarakhand having been recovered, dispatched back home to Jharkhand, and laid to rest, the search operation has come to an end. Amid increasing tendency of labelling every incidence as being man-made the debate on […]
Avalanche in Chamoli district kills 18
Almost after 75 days of the devastating Rishiganga–Dhauliganga flash flood tragedy of February 7, 2021 that killed 204 persons and devastated two hydropower projects, including one of 520 MW capacity at Tapoban, the region was once again in the headlines due to yet another disaster. It was an avalanche yet again, however in the previous […]