New Delhi: Three bodies were recovered on Sunday from the Tapovan tunnel following a seven-day operation to rescue around 30 people trapped in it after a flashflood-hit Joshimath area of Chamoli district, a senior official said.These are the first bodies to have been recovered from the tunnel at the site of the flood-ravaged Tapovan-Vishnugad hydel project where people were at work when the calamity occurred last Sunday.The recoveries take the toll in the disaster so far to 41, with 39 bodies recovered over the past week from downstream areas of the Dhauli Ganga river.One of the bodies has been identified as that of a man from Narendra Nagar in Tehri district.Rescue teams have been battling against the odds to reach out to the trapped people at the site of the flood-ravaged Tapovan-Vishnugad hydel project. The NTPC’s Tapovan-Vishnugad hydel project had suffered extensive damage in the flashflood.Rescuers had said on Saturday that they were still hopeful of finding survivors, notwithstanding the numerous challenges like the muck and the water from Dhauli Ganga constantly flowing into the tunnels.The river had deviated from its path after the flash floods leaving 166 missing.The State Emergency Operation Centre here had said that scientists of the Indian Institute of Remote Sensing during an aerial survey of the Rishi Ganga found that the glacial lake formed due to the avalanche over it has begun to release water, which reduces chances of it breaching or causing a fresh flash flood during the rescue operations.The lake is at the confluence of Raunthi Gad and Rishi Ganga.According to Central Water Commission (CWC) chairman Saumitra Haldar, it is 400 metres in length, 25 metres wide and 60 metres deep.The CWC is examining possibilities of what can be done if the water rises to a “critical” level. It is conducting simulation studies and also examining the possibility of carrying out a controlled blast to drain out the water.P.K. Tiwari, Commandant of the National Disaster Response Force, had said that based on their experience, they are optimistic about saving lives and mentioned the possible presence of air ducts and gaps in the tunnel.So far, 20 bodies and 12 human limbs have been cremated after DNA sampling, the DM said.Compensation of Rs 4 lakh each was also paid to the kin of five victims of the calamity from Dehradun, Bageshwar and Haridwar districts of Uttarakhand and Lakhimpur Kheri and Aligarh districts of neighbouring Uttar Pradesh.A number of reports have pointed out how given the development trajectory being employed in the Uttarakhand region, and the environmental best practices were ignored, a disaster of this kind should have been foreseen. As C.P. Rajendran wrote in The Wire,“Consider the following: the Chamoli flood was the result of a glacial break-off that surprisingly occured at the edge of winter. It is hard to overlook here a detail reported by the Divecha Centre for Climate Change, Bengaluru, in a 2018 policy brief: that the average temperature in the northwestern Himalaya has risen by 0.66º C since 1991 – an increase much higher than the global average. The higher Himalaya became even warmer on average in the same period.Scientists from the Snow and Avalanche Study Establishment (SASE) in Chandigarh also reached the same conclusion – that winters in the northwest Himalaya have been getting warmer and wetter in the last 25 years. And these findings together indicate that a region that has for many millennia been marked by its extreme cold in the winter is already started exhibiting completely opposite trends.So the Chamoli flood was simply waiting to happen, and the science tells us that there is every chance such incidents will only become more common in the Himalaya.Infrastructure projects like the various power projects affect the region first when they are constructed – and then when they come in the way of powerful natural forces. Put another way, high-velocity flows turn into disasters when they have to mediate with the built-environment present in the way. The Chamoli disaster is no exception to this rule, and this is why it should be treated as yet another warning against the unregulated construction throughout Uttarakhand’s river valleys and floodplains.”(With PTI inputs)