The October 2023 Teesta floods and the acronym GLOF are not going to be easily erased from our memories, especially when it rains in the first week of October. Neither is the scarring of the landscape and the river flowing alongside houses, roads, and highways going to heal overnight, considering very little was done for the rehabilitation of the landscape.
What has faded is the much-needed national and mainstream media focus on the issue and dialogue for rehabilitation and resilience building. As a region, we have to ask the question: are we left to live with the impacts of the Teesta Disaster 2023, or are we going to learn from it and build back better?
On 4 October 2023, the River Teesta rose to catastrophic levels, leaving a trail of devastation and destruction that Sikkim, Darjeeling, and Kalimpong are still recovering from. The Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) from South Lonak Lake in North Sikkim, at 17,300 feet above mean sea level, came crashing down the Lachen Chu in North Sikkim, wreaking havoc along its path.
The waters raced down into the already brimming reservoir of the 1,200 MW Sikkim Urja Dam at Chungthang (5,870 ft AMSL), which was quickly overwhelmed and burst, releasing a wall of water that unleashed a rage not experienced in our lifetime. The deluge swept through the Teesta valley, destroying everything in its 162 km rampage from the glacier to NHPC Teesta Low Dam Project (TLDP) III at 27th Mile in Kalimpong district. It continued its destructive flow into parts of North Bengal and Bangladesh.
Countless lives and livelihoods were lost—some documented and many not counted nor considered. Roads, bridges, hydropower dams, and defense installations were washed away on that fateful day.
For a disaster this size, mainstream media coverage was limited and mostly reported as the ‘Sikkim Disaster’. It did not help that West Bengal failed to officially call it a disaster. There was an outpouring of community response, with leaders and volunteers pouring out in great numbers in Sikkim, Darjeeling, and Kalimpong to clear the rubble and provide relief, especially to people living along the lower reaches of the Teesta.
Relief work began with great gusto, but we realize that it is not as simple as building houses alone or distributing financial aid; it needs to make sense to the lives of the impacted communities. The memory of the disaster continues to this date, especially during the monsoons, yet these memories have not been converted into concerted action that is visionary and necessary.
Post the tragic GLOF event, we have lived through two monsoons. It is now a given that the lifeline to Kalimpong and Sikkim from Siliguri will be broken multiple times during the rains, that Teesta will breach its banks at the slightest upstream rainfall, and overflow onto the highway, stalling traffic for hours on end.
It is accepted that North Sikkim will get cut off and there will be more dramatic landslides impacting lives, livelihoods, and the landscape. It has become common to see a stream of vehicles to Sikkim passing through Kalimpong or Darjeeling due to the frequent closing of NH 10 from landslides, rockfalls, or highway subsidence.
These alternate routes take at the very least double the normal travel time, and the costs on the driver’s wellbeing, travelers’ added expenditures, disturbance caused to communities, and the perilous conditions of the alternate roads find little mention and are not factored.
Two dry seasons have passed, but not much has been done for long-term rehabilitation of the disaster impacts and strengthening infrastructure that does not come tumbling down with the rains.
The urgency and criticality for action is highlighted by the Centre of Science 2025 analysis of India’s Atlas on Weather Disasters, which shows that the Himalaya have faced extreme weather for 822 days since 2022, killing 2,683 people across 13 states and UTs. The 2025 monsoon has been extremely harsh on the people and ecology of the Himalaya, with a spate of major disasters.
An analysis of news for 2025 till date shows that more than 1,774 lives were lost, 448 injured, 176 missing, and over Rs 12 crore in losses estimated. The increasing frequency and magnitude of disasters in our Himalaya is a result of our development trajectories as well as the impacts of the climate crisis.
The Teesta Disaster 2023, with its catastrophic magnitude, showed flaws in our development choices, disaster management systems, and priorities, including national and regional focus. The GLOF is largely due to climate crisis impacts that have resulted in faster melting of glaciers in the Himalaya, as global warming affects the Himalaya most after the poles.
A global phenomenon caused by the production and consumption patterns of industrialized nations and regions impacts a low-carbon-footprint Himalaya with no global mechanism to compensate for the loss and damage to this vulnerable region. The GLOF waters added to the Chungthang Dam waters, wreaking havoc and adding to the discourse against misplaced large hydropower in the Himalaya, which is extractive as well as destructive to the landscape and people.
At a national level, mountain disasters do not feature high on the priority list, with a response system that is based on body counts and not socio-ecological loss and damage. Disasters in the Himalaya, especially outside urban spaces, do not produce large numbers that attract national focus for proper response.
The first line of response in the Teesta Disaster came from the immediate communities, highlighting the need for local capacities in disaster response. While significant relief work was undertaken, it did not translate to the transboundary regional needs through which the Teesta river basin flows.
The ‘Sikkim Disaster’ narrative limited interventions to a singular state and did not focus on the interstate collaborative effort that was much needed. The response itself was highly relief-centric, and with memory fading, rehabilitation work that is sustainable, disaster-resilient, livelihood-focused, and based on community participation and equity did not take priority.
These insights highlight inherent flaws in disaster management institutions, which are siloed and lack synergies across government departments and people.
The Teesta Disaster 2023 cannot be looked at only from a relief and rehabilitation lens; it is a socio-ecological, restorative justice and equity issue that goes beyond departmental and political boundaries. This cannot be achieved just at the local level but requires policy and adequate resource allocations.
Darjeeling Himalaya Initiative and Save the Hills, led by Wing Commander Praful Rao, in three memorandums (2023–2024) called for an expert committee to recommend short-, medium-, and long-term action for resilience building and implementation of these interventions with utmost priority.
They seem to have fallen on deaf ears, as the Teesta still flows above danger marks, communication infrastructure keeps breaking, and landslides continue to impact communities, with immediate relief or bandaid interventions remaining the priority.
The Teesta Disaster 2023 must not fade from our memories. We need to proactively engage with it and incorporate its lessons into development strategies that make our landscape and communities more resilient. It cannot be relegated to 2023 history alone, as disasters in our region cannot be looked at in a singular timeline but as a continuum, with lessons to be learned.
The Teesta had risen in rage in October 1968 too, and it could rise again, as South Lonak Lake and many other glacial lakes are still expanding. We cannot afford to say again that scientists and experts had predicted the GLOF and no action was taken.
It is critically important to take this forward as a sustainable mountain development issue that questions how infrastructure is built in the mountains, especially large dams and roads. National policies, practices, and resource allocations to the Himalaya must be sensitive and appropriate to the importance and fragility of these landscapes.
Engagement at a transboundary landscape level, beyond administrative, political, and bureaucratic boundaries, for collaborative visioning and planning is much needed. Ensuring minimal loss and damage in the future and, most importantly, interventions in the Sikkim and Darjeeling Himalaya must be such that they do not invite disasters. We might forget the Teesta Disaster 2023, but Teesta never forgets—and the choice and responsibility is ours.
The author is a Development Worker at DLR Prerna, Secretary, Integrated Mountain Initiative and Darjeeling Himalaya Initiative, Member, Zero Waste Himalaya.