New Delhi, Aug. 9 -- The National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM) has identified a glacial lake upstream of the Kheer Ganga river, lending support to the analysis by some glaciologists who opined that flash floods and mudslides that ravaged Dharali in Uttarakhand may have been set off by a glacier collapse.

However, NIDM did not confirm that glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) could be the cause of the disaster.

In its note released on Friday, NIDM identified the glacial lake (area 0.8156 ha; perimeter 423 m; height 5,200m) in four optical satellite images taken in 2014, 2020 and twice in 2022. However, there is no optical imagery available post-2022 to confirm the existence of the glacial lake. Further, volume of the lake remain...