Villagers of the Raini village in Tapovan area of Chamoli suspect that the Sunday’s devastating flash floods in Uttarakhand may be due to the heat being produced by a radioactive device.
In 1965, the device was misplaced during a confidential mission to Nanda Devi held by the CIA and IB to install nuclear- powered monitoring equipment on the peak of the mountain for spying purpose on China.
But, this mission couldn’t be successful as the mountaineering team faced a heavy snowstorm and left the device at the base of the mountain. After a year, when they went back to look for the device, they couldn’t find it. Several searches have been conducted to trace the device but it is still missing.
On Sunday, when floods occurred near the Raini village in Uttarakhand, villagers said that the smell of the air was so suffocating that they couldn’t breathe for some time.
Villagers have urged the government to start a search operation for the lost device as soon as possible because if the device is buried under the snow somewhere and is producing heat, then there will be more snow melting and disasters in future.
Tourism minister Satpal Maharaj in 2018 had raised the problem of the radioactive device polluting the snow falling down from the Nanda Devi range into the Ganga and requested Prime Minister Modi to look into the matter immediately.