Natural Calamity or Manmade Disaster?: Civil Services Mentor Magazine September 2013

Nature has unleashed its wrath on Uttarakhand. Hundreds of people have died and thousands are still stranded. It seems, the land of God has turned into the town of ghost. Although official figure of death toll in the catastrophe, caused by flash floods followed by landslides, is placed around 1,000 but in actual, it likely to cross over 5,000. More than 1000 roads, 90 bridges have been washed away in the monsoon mayhem in
Dev Bhoomi. Even, the holy shrine of Kedarnath has barely survived, it is buried deep in mud. But question is who is responsible for this catastrophe?

Uttarakhand tragedy, which seems to be a natural calamity, in fact is the man made disaster. Colossal greed of politicians and bureaucrats has eaten up the lives of thousands. The experts say that unplanned development and rampant destruction of forests is the some of the main reasons behind the nature’s fury. Then, unabated construction of hydro-electric (hydel) power projects, roads, hotels have also compounded the problem and made the State prone to such disaster.

It is one week since Uttarakhand’s worst disaster in living memory. Flash floods resulting from extremely intense rainfall swept away mountainsides, villages and towns, thousands of people, animals, agricultural fields, irrigation canals, domestic water sources, dams, roads, bridges, and buildings — anything that stood in the way. A week later, media attention remains riveted on the efforts to rescue tens of thousands of pilgrims and tourists visiting the shrines in the uppermost reaches of Uttarakhand’s sacred rivers. But the deluge spread far beyond the Char Dhams — Yamunotri, Gangotri, Kedarnath and Badrinath — to cover the entire State. The catchments of many smaller rivers also witnessed flash floods but the media has yet to report on the destruction there. Eyewitness accounts being gathered by official agencies and voluntary organisations have reported devastation from more than 200 villages so far and more affected villages are being reported every day. Villagers whose homes, lands and animals have been swept away by the floods are in a state of shock trying to imagine day-to-day survival without their basic livelihood assets.

“When you change the course of a river by mining, cutting of trees indiscriminately and building roads in a haphazard manner, such a calamity is bound to take place,” said PP Dayani, director of the GB Pant Institute of Himalayan Environment and Development. According to experts, nature has its own capacity to recover and rejuvenate, and humans should not challenge it. “A lesson to be learnt is Garhwal’s 1805 earthquake which is a classic example of that one should not meddle with nature, said Ravi Chopra, director of the Dehradun-based People Science Institute. CAG had said that State Disaster Management System has never met since it was formed in October, 2007. It is quite obvious, when they have not met even once in six years, then there must have no polices, guidelines, rules, regulations in place to deal with such a catastrophe.

Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, two hill states in the Himalayan range, are so far the worst hit by the extreme rains that struck northern India in the wake of monsoons that set in early this year. Media reports say nearly 60 persons have died in Uttarakhand, and an estimated 60,000 pilgrims are stranded. Heavy rainfall has wreaked havoc on the region because of the fragile nature of the Himalayan range and poor soil stability in its steep slopes. But it is man-made factors that have compounded the scale of the disaster. Unabated expansion of hydro-power projects and construction of roads to accommodate ever-increasing tourism, especially religious tourism, are also major causes for the unprecedented scale of devastation, say experts.