Earlier in February, parts of the Indian Himalayas were flooded after the Chamoli Glacier erupted and the dam at Tapovan collapsed, killing at least 68 people. Scientists looking at the area from above believe that apiece of glacier storm triggered a massive flood – after years of cracking and freezing – and breaking the mountain’s ridge, which blocked the water in the lower reaches. . The water level probably rose, causing the dam to burst further, causing further flooding and subsequent flooding.
The inhabitants of the village of Rainy, however, not convinced by this interpretation – and it all goes back to a strange story of CIA and radioactive material that took place during the height of the Cold War. Stories believed by people who have lived in the village for decades tell the story of how the CIA went on a secret mission to Nanda Devi, India’s highest mountain. Instead of climbing the mountain, they hired elite mountaineers from the local area and the United States, training them to mount a device on top of the mountain: a piece of plutonium-powered equipment used to observe China.
Strange stories may hear, but they are far from the success the CIA had hoped. Two instruments were to be fitted, one on the top of Nanda Devi and one on Nanda Kot. Nanda Kot’s team reached the top of it and fitted the device, although nothing useful found from it. The device has seven plutonium rods – do not consider this cost – the device extensively searched and the radioactive part recovered after buried in this iceberg. At the second peak of Nanda Devi, however, the team did not rise to the top at all and forced to leave the device on the mountain before moving away from the adverse situation. When they returned, they found that the device – and the plutonium rods that drove it – had disappeared, never to seen again.
“Yes, the device froze and got stuck in a glacier, and God knows what effect it will have,” Jim McCarthy told Rock and Ice magazine’s Pete Tech. “At the sanctuary, I’m the only person who handled the plutonium and I’m the one who loaded the device and straddled the chowder thing. I tell you, the fuel rods were wildly hot,” McCarthy added. “I saw the Sherpasfighting that they were carrying [the device] over they had no idea what it was. They will place the thing in the middle of their tent and hood around it. I guarantee that none of them survives now.”
McCarthy is not satisfied with leaving the device on the mountain, believing it will pollute the environment, but it discarded. Many years later, villagers feared the device might descend from a glacier or start polluting the Ganges. After the flood, it even made people suspect that this was the cause. “The smell was so strong that we couldn’t breathe for a while.”It would not have smelled like it if it was just debris and snow,” a villager told the Times of India, describing the strong smell in the air before the recent incident. This may be behind the incident.”
Government officials are not interested in this theory.
A senior scientist in the Department of Chemistry at the Forest Research Institute told the Times of India, “Since it is a radioactive material, it is natural that it could emit radioactive rays that could damage water and other elements around it.”However, we can assume that since it was carried as part of an operation, it will be taken to the sealed chamber, and as a result it is less likely to emit any radiation outside.” The DIAT sought for several years at great expense by the CIA and the Indian government, but has not yet implemented. New concerns after the avalanche broke – perhaps due to natural causes – could lead to further investigations.
