Monsoon rains have flooded hundreds of villages on the Sutlej River
Today’s Image of the Day from NASA Earth Observatory features the Sutlej River in the Punjab region of India. In August, 2023, weeks of heavy monsoon rains flooded farmland and hundreds of villages along the river.
According to NASA, the image shows water overtopping banks of the Sutlej River on August 19. The image was captured by the Operational Land Imager-2 (OLI-2) on Landsat 9.
“The Sutlej River flows southwest from India into Pakistan. Although the state of Punjab in India received about average rainfall since June, according to India’s Meteorological Department, excess rain has fallen on Ladakh and Himachal Pradesh, to the north. Between June 1 and August 25, Ladakh received almost three times as much rain as normal,” said NASA.
“Water levels on the Sutlej at the Ganda Singh Wala village gauging station, 7 kilometers (4 miles) west of Firozpur, were ‘exceptionally high’ on August 19, according to the Pakistan Meteorological Department. Pakistan’s chief meteorologist covering floods said the river level was at its highest in 35 years.”
According to Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority, more than 200 people have died in Pakistan in rain-related incidents since the monsoon season began in late June.
Many parts of Pakistan are still recovering from the devastation of extreme monsoon rains in 2022, which flooded nearly one-third of the country and killed more than one thousand people, noted NASA.
Image Credit: NASA Earth Observatory
—–
Check us out on EarthSnap, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.
