Uttarakhand Irrigation Minister Satpal Maharaj on Tuesday said a device installed to monitor China's movement has gone missing post the glacier burst in Chamoli district on February 7.
"We are concerned over the way glaciers are melting and the tidal wave created in the mountains. The plutonium pack that was kept to monitor China’s movement is no longer there," Satpal Maharaj told news agency ANI.
"Orders were made to place plutonium pack to monitor China's movement at the borders. We request the government to investigate the pack too," he added.
Satpal Maharaj also said that that the state government will create a department to investigate the cause of the glacier burst incident in Chamoli and monitoring of the glaciers through satellite. "All angles (related to the Chamoli glacier burst) should be investigated. We will form a department in our ministry to monitor and study all the glaciers through satellite," he said.
The death toll in the avalanche triggered by the bursting of a glacier in Chamoli has gone up to 58 as a total of 11 bodies are recovered from the Tapovan tunnel, whereas 146 people are still missing, said Uttarakhand Police on Tuesday.
Indo-Tibetan Border Police personnel along with National Disaster Response Force and other sister agencies have been conducting search and rescue operations in Chamoli district.
Meanwhile, the Alaknanda River at Srinagar in Pauri Garhwal is flowing at the normal level; no alert has been issued by the district administration in this regard, said the Uttarakhand Police.
Uttarakhand Disaster Response Force has put an alarm system to detect the rise in the level of water and alerted about it, in Raini village of Chamoli district.
A glacier burst in the Tapovan-Reni area of Chamoli District of Uttarakhand last week led to massive flooding in the Dhauliganga and Alaknanda rivers and damaged houses and the nearby Rishiganga power project.
(Inputs from ANI)
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