There was panic in the Himalayan Kingdom as there was sudden rush of water down the Phochhu from a 13-km long Tshojo glacier. Earleir studies indicated that the glaciers in the Himalayas would swell due to warmer climate and burst numerous natural lakes flooding the areas downhill.

An initial survey after the flood has found seven new ponds on the surface of Tshojo glacier. Geologists suspect that the rush of water in the Phochhu on Wednesday might have come from unseen and undetected underground lakes or ponds in Tshojo glacier.

A geology study published this year in the Himalayan kingdom has revealed that the natural dams separating the glacial lakes are shrinking posing grave danger.“We're running against time,” said Bhutan's only glaciologist, Karma Toeb.

Chinese official have confirmed that the dam breach in Tibet did cause floods in NE India, claiming 30 lives and leaving more than 100 missing. Panicked Ministers form Arunachal Pradesh had rushed here to ask for central intervention.

The Tsangpo river, which originates in Tibet, flows into India and is called Siang in Arunachal Pradesh before it becomes the Brahmaputra. More than 50,000 people in five districts of Arunachal Pradesh were left homeless by the floods in the past two weeks, while several parts of the state were still cut off from the rest of the country.

Earlier reports had said that hundreds of glaciers in the Himalayas would melt and than shrink first casing massive floods and then serious water shortage. The worst affected would be the regions on the foothills of the great mountain range including the North East India.

Nearly two billion people in Asia, from coastal city dwellers to yak-herding nomads, will begin suffering water shortages in coming decades as global warming shrinks glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau, the reports said. The plateau has more than 45,000 glaciers that build up during the snowy season and then drain to the major rivers in Asia, including the Brahmaputra, Yangtze, Yellow, and Mekong.

The U.N. Climate Panel said last year that Himalayan glaciers, which feed rivers on which hundreds of millions of people depend, could shrink to 100,000 square kms by 2030 from 500,000 now because of global warming. However, that it was too early to know exactly what impact rising pollution would have in the Himalayas.

Scientists and environmentalists have already warned that the global warming is going to affect lower parts of the Himalayas under which several areas of the region come. They have predicted erratic rainfall and abnormal changes in the weather in the region once famous for a salubrious good climate.

Temperatures in the plateau, which some scientists call the 'Third Pole' for its massive glacial ice sheets, are rising twice as fast as other parts of the world. If melting continues at current levels, two-thirds of the plateau's glaciers will likely be gone by 2050.

Nearly two billion people in India, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Bhutan would be hit by water shortages as the rivers slow. At worst, the shortages or excess of it could lead to new wars in the region over scarce resources, the reports have said.(eom)