On August 16, 2025, Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah was visiting Chishoti village in Kishtwar district to take stock of the damages caused by the flash flood two days earlier when a group of over a 100 people staged a demonstration.
The August 14 flash flood, caused by incessant rain due to a cloudburst, swept away people and property, claiming at least 60 lives. At the protest during CM Abdullah’s visit, the Chishoti residents demanded a government initiative for relocation. They told the chief minister that they needed alternative land in Jammu or Kishtwar town since this place had become unlivable.
Among them was 27-year-old Raj Kumar. He said that about 70 households require relocation at the earliest, as frequent occurrences of flash floods and landslides have left them vulnerable to natural disasters. To add to their fears, there are several glacial lakes in the vicinity and a breach in such lakes due to landslides or heavy rain could wipe out the entire village.
“We are afraid the worst is yet to come. Residents of Chishoti and adjoining Machail are at great risk of glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs),” Kumar told Outlook. “We fear for our lives. We live in the danger zone and our area is in close vicinity to glaciers, which can cause floods and destroy our village.”
Roads that cut through mountain ranges, villages built atop hills, and houses in forested areas face the highest risk, he says. Pinki Devi, another Chishoti resident, echoes Kumar’s fears. “It is the responsibility of the government to ensure our safety and relocate us to some safer place,” she says.
Kishtwar is J&K’s glacial hub, as this district is home to 197 glacial lakes, which is over one-third of the total glacial lakes in J&K. Most of these lakes are formed as a result of glacial melt due to global warming. Breaches in such lakes can cause devastating flash floods in the downstream areas
Threat Looming Large
The 2024-25 GLOF management report of the Kishtwar District Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) notes that the “district, marked by its rugged terrain and high-altitude glaciers, faces increasing vulnerability to natural hazards including GLOFs.”
The impacts of climate change, especially the accelerated melting of glaciers due to global warming, have intensified the risk of catastrophic events, posing significant threats to human life and critical infrastructure, including roads, government buildings, schools, and hospitals are at considerable risk, the DDMA report says.
The problems are at least two-fold: The district has recorded a significant expansion in glacial lake areas, which means increase in the water volume held behind unstable moraine dams. And the pace of glacial retreat has accelerated, creating new glacial lakes.
Lakes such as Mundiksar Lake and Hangu Lake, both classified as high-risk, are prime examples of expanding lakes in this region. “This expansion heightens the potential for catastrophic dam failure,” the GLOF management report adds.
The report also points out how recent scientific studies have highlighted the rapid loss of glacial mass in the Chenab River basin due to climate change. It added that this loss is of particular concern because “many of the newly formed glacial lakes are held behind unstable moraine dams, which can fail catastrophically under stress from increased water levels, seismic activity, or further glacial retreat.”
Such a breach in glacial lakes can flatten anything in the way of the water. The threat from GLOFs is particularly significant in the tehsils of Padder, Machail, Dachhan, Marwah and Warwan, along with areas near the Kishtwar High Altitude National Park, due to their proximity to glacial lakes.
Guddi, another Chishoti resident, says, “We have been living in constant fear since the August 14 flood. Lives, property, fields—everything seems to be at stake.”
Monitoring and Mitigation
Environmental experts and activists describe the August 14 flashfloods in Chishoti as an outcome of climatic changes. Kashmir University’s Head of the Department (HOD) of Geography and Disaster Management, Pervaiz Ahmad, says that Kishtwar’s problem comes from the concentration of most of the high hazard glacial lakes in a single district. “We did a study to identify the new glacial lakes and found that Kishtwar has the maximum number of high hazard glacial lakes,” he says, adding, “Even when we say that cloudburst was responsible for the flashfloods in Kishtwar, it is part of a larger story of climate change at the global level.”
As per official data, the glaciers in the Kishtwar Himalayas include the Brahma Glacier and the Metwan Glacier. In the district, glacial lakes cover an area of approximately 392.64 hectares, with a significant majority of 90.86 per cent of lakes smaller than five hectares.
Environmental activist Sheikh Ghulam Rasool blames human intervention for the increase in ecologically fragile zones, including unregulated construction activities in the Indian Himalayas. “Several tourism-related projects and other infrastructural works like roads and power projects which have been taken up in the ecologically fragile zones. This is a major cause of concern and is responsible for disasters like the one which was witnessed in Chishoti,” he says.
The DDMA report notes that the ongoing expansion of these glacial lakes not only exacerbates the risk of GLOFs but also underscores the urgent need for regular monitoring and risk mitigation strategies to protect communities in Kishtwar.
Mukhtar Ahmad, Director of the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), who also served as a member of the Jammu & Kashmir government’s GLOF Monitoring Committee, says that incidents like the one in Chishoti remain a climate change concern. “Heavy rainfall in the Chishoti area triggered the flashfloods. As part of the expert group on preventing the GLOFs, we are in the process of working out a mitigation plan. Some meetings have been conducted to study how the outbursts of lakes could be prevented to avoid a major problem,” he notes.
