Natural calamities are unavoidable but haphazard growth is not

The Uttarakhand flash floods expose more than the inefficiency of our disaster management system.

Tehelka, 21 June, 2013

Ten people were killed and 38 others went missing as incessant rains batteredUttarakhand today. Landslides, cloud bursts and flash floods flattened homes and stranded hundreds of pilgrims with the Chardham Yatra coming to a grinding halt. Landslides are common in the fragile hills of Garhwal region…” No, the skies have not opened up again. That was how the PTI reported the havoc, minor compared to this year’s, in Garhwal last August. And even the year before that, the agency reported, theChardham Yatra was suspended for nearly a week following heavy landslides.

It is natural to feel numbed, like Uttarakhand CM Vijay Bahuguna felt, by the magnitude of the cloud burst that hit the hills this week. It is necessary to question, like a few Opposition leaders have, the efficacy of the government’s disaster management system. But the loss of nearly 200 lives — and hundreds more feared to be unearthed as the waters recede — in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh begs us also to rethink our options.

Is it a coincidence that landslides keep devastating Uttarakhand’s Garhwal region year after year while the neighbouring Kumaon reports much lesser damage? Or does it have to do something with the absence of mega pilgrimage centres in Kumaon hills? Why do towns, such as Srinagar, that have remained relatively unaffected by the pilgrim circuit within Garhwal, suffer fewer casualties?

Consider the number of religious tourists — 71,440 — who were stranded this week for an idea of the scale of Garhwal’s pilgrimage industry. Over 100 priests worked at the Kedarnath temple alone and at least 1,000 others were employed at the adjacent Ram Bada market. Officially, 5,500 mules ferried devotees across the 14-km trail between the base camp and the shrine.

This massive influx of pilgrims has led to the construction of hundreds of hotels in the Chardham circuit, including at the transit towns of Rudraprayag, Chamoli and Karanprayag. Since pilgrims must access the ghats, the closer the hotels to the rivers the better their business. Also, in the last couple of decades, the traditional low, wooden construction of the hills have given away to concrete structures that often rise up to three or even four storeys.

The result is an unbearable load on the Garhwal mountains that are anyway much steeper compared to the rolling hills of the Kumaon. With so many heavy structures hanging on the rivers prone to flash floods, is it any surprise that a few collapsed too quickly in the waters when the current gnawed away at the cracking earth under their insufficient foundations?

Too many road projects have become the other curse of the hills. Highways are being widened because increasing tourism traffic demands more road space. New roads are being laid to the remotest and most sparsely populated corners because there is money to be made under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana. The rush has invited contractors who have little understanding of the mountains. Random blasting of rock faces has led to landslides that now continue for years after the so-called project completion.

Same is the story in Himachal where the chief minister himself was stuck for over two days at Kinnaur because the Hindustan-Tibet national highway was breached by massive landslides at several points. Kinnaur’s (and also Spiti’s) additional woe, ironically, has been ill-conceived afforestation programmes that have increased rainfall in this historically dry region, triggering frequent landslips in its fragile, muddy hills.

If rampant blasting and concrete construction is continuing because few are aware of their cumulative impact, a series of hydro-power projects on the Himalayan rivers are coming up in complete defiance of public and scientific resistance. Around 600 dams are either operational, under construction or proposed on the Ganga and its tributaries. The fate of all major rivers — from Sutlej to Chenab — in Himachal is no different.

Why only in the hills? Rivers are supposed to overflow in the monsoon all along their course. That is why the term ‘flood plains’ exists. Rivers in spate wash away everything and leave alluvial layers for good harvest. This had been the traditional trade-off till we started settling down right on the riverbank. And yet it makes headlines every time water seeps through the basement of the tony Commonwealth Games Village.

The force majeure clause defines natural calamities as risk beyond reasonable human control. But it is we who exacerbate the human cost of such calamities. The annual monsoon tragedies are the natural consequence of our thoughtless actions. The bigger tragedy is that we are still no wiser for the loss of so many lives.