Early warning of the Gohna lake burst of 1894

In September 1893, a massive rockfall completely blocked the Birahi Ganga River valley, in the UP Himalayas, constructing a natural landslide dam that stood over 900 feet high. This created a large, deep body of water called Gohna Lake. Although a massive portion of the dam initially broke in 1894—destroying towns downstream like Srinagar—the lake was not entirely empty and remained a prominent feature for decades. During the severe Himalayan floods of 1924, the remaining landslide dam breached for a second time, unleashing another devastating wave down the Alaknanda valley. The lake continued to exist in a reduced capacity until 1970, when another catastrophic Alaknanda flood completely silted it up, leaving it entirely filled with debris and disappearing from the landscape

In the context of the landslide and horrific floods in Nepal questions are being raised if some early warning could have been given. In one case where Headmaster Rajendra Dawadi of Tribhuvan Trishuli School, perhaps got a few minutes early warning, he rang the bell, turned buses back and was able to save 1,643 lives of children. Disasters do happen, but it is an early warning that can save lives. The early warning system installed by the British in 1894 at Lake Gohna even worked for the 1924 lake breach.

In 1894, faced with a massive 900-foot natural landslide dam that they knew would eventually overtop, Lt. Col Pulford, Lt. Col Crookshank, and geologist Thomas Holland engineered what is widely considered one of the first successful modern early warning systems in the world. The system relied on a highly coordinated mix of latest technology for the era i.e. telegraph and strict infrastructural preparation.


What they did was nothing short of a miracle. They established a dedicated temporary telegraph line running directly from the remote monitoring outpost at Durmi village (near the lake) down to the district headquarters in Chamoli. Engineers stationed at the dam recorded the lake’s water levels and structural behaviors continuously. Daily progress reports were telegraphed down the valley so authorities could track exactly how fast the lake was filling up. Ahead of the breach, authorities established a series of observation posts along the entire lengths of the Alaknanda and Ganga valleys. Physical "danger levels" were clearly marked on rocks and posts near downstream settlements. If local watchmen saw the river cross these lines, they had explicit orders to sound immediate local alarms and initiate pre-planned evacuations.

Rather than waiting for a sudden failure, Crookshank and Holland studied the geomorphology of the debris to map out a timeline. On August 22, 1894, Crookshank telegraphed a warning that the dam would fail within 48 hours. They were incredibly accurate—the lake overtopped just past midnight on August 25. Because of the precise timeline, every single vulnerable village, including the major town of Srinagar, was completely evacuated before the wall of water arrived.

Knowing the immense kinetic energy a flash flood holds, the authorities did not just move people; they dismantled suspension bridges in the expected path of the flood to prevent the iron and cables from being turned into destructive battering rams downstream. Major pilgrim routes winding through the Himalayas were entirely diverted to higher ground to ensure travelers were not caught in the valley floors. Thanks to this meticulous system, when 10 billion cubic feet of water were violently released in less than six hours during the 1894 burst, the entire valley was swept clean—yet virtually no lives were lost (records state only a single family of five who ignored warnings perished). This exact blueprint of observation posts and valley-wide telegraph communication remained the foundational network that allowed authorities to quickly spread warnings further downstream when the lake suffered its second massive breach during the monsoons of 1924. One can only wish that an early warning mechanism existed between authorities of China and Nepal. The hope is that this disaster will lead to the establishment of one.

Sandeep Chakravorty is ambassador of India to Indonesia.