Pre-collapse motion of the February 2021 Chamoli  rock–ice avalanche, Indian Himalaya

Van Wyk de Vries, Maximillian; Bhushan, Shashank; Jacquemart, Mylène; Deschamps-Berger, César; Berthier, Etienne; Gascoin, Simon; Shean, David E.; Shugar, Dan H.; Kääb, Andreas

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-22-3309-2022

Articles | Volume 22, issue 10

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-22-3309-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-22-3309-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 22, issue 10

Research article

|

13 Oct 2022

Research article |

| 13 Oct 2022

Pre-collapse motion of the February 2021 Chamoli rock–ice avalanche, Indian Himalaya

Maximillian Van Wyk de Vries, Shashank Bhushan, Mylène Jacquemart, César Deschamps-Berger, Etienne Berthier, Simon Gascoin, David E. Shean, Dan H. Shugar, and Andreas Kääb

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-22-3309-2022-supplement

Data sets

Chamoli Disaster Pre-event 2-m DEM Composite: September 2015 S. Bhushan and D. Shean https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4554647

ArcticDEM C. Porter, P. Morin, I. Howat, M.-J.Noh, B. Bates, K. Peterman, S. Keesey, M. Schlenk, J, Gardiner, K.Tomko, M. Willis, C. Kelleher, M. Cloutier, E. Husby, S. Foga, H. Nakamura, M. Platson, M. Wethington, C. Williamson, G. Bauer, J. Enos, G. Arnold, W. Kramer, W., P. Becker, A. Doshi, C. D'Souza, P. Cummens, F. Laurier, and M. Bojesen Doshi, A., D'Souza, C., Cummens, P., Laurier, F., and Bojesen, M. https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/OHHUKH

HMA 8-m DEM Mosaic~v2: Chamoli Region D. Shean https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.4532391

Chamoli Disaster Pre-event DEM (2015-05-07 WorldView-1 Stereo) D. Shean and S. Bhushan https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.4533679

Chamoli Disaster Post-event 2-m DEM Composite (February 10-11, 2021) and Difference Map D. Shean, S. Bhushan, E. Berthier, C. Deschamps-Berger, S. Gascoin, and F. Knuth https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4558692

Model code and software

MaxVWDV/glacier-image-velocimetry: Glacier Image Velocimetry (v1.0.1) M. Van Wyk de Vries https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4904544

nasa-jpl/autoRIFT J. H. Kennedy https://github.com/nasa-jpl/autoRIFT

NeoGeographyToolkit/StereoPipeline O. Alexandrov https://github.com/NeoGeographyToolkit/StereoPipeline

isce-framework/isce2 R. T. Burns https://github.com/isce-framework/isce2

dshean/demcoreg D. Shean, S. Bhushan, D. Lilien, and J. Meyer https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3243481

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Short summary

On 7 February 2021, a large rock–ice avalanche occurred in Chamoli, Indian Himalaya. The resulting debris flow swept down the nearby valley, leaving over 200 people dead or missing. We use a range of satellite datasets to investigate how the collapse area changed prior to collapse. We show that signs of instability were visible as early 5 years prior to collapse. However, it would likely not have been possible to predict the timing of the event from current satellite datasets.