Uttarakhand Disaster's-A man made Tragedy or nature's fury!
Dr VK Bahuguna
February 10, 2021, 04:11:26
On 7th February the people of the
country witnessed a massive flash flood of a devastating fury in Dhauliganga
River in the Chamoli District of Uttarakhand. The Dhauliganga is a source
streams tributary of the Ganga River and merges with the Alaknanda River at
Vishnuprayag at the base of Joshimath. The cause of the flood on initial speculation is
attributed to the breakdown of a Glacier in 'Rainee' village around 25 km from
the Joshimath. The flash flood according to the initial estimates of
Uttarakhand government killed 8 people and around 170 people are missing. It damaged
the under construction Tapovan Vishnugad project of the National Thermal Power Corporation's (NTPC) with a planned capacity of
520 MW and Rishi Ganga Power Corporation Ltd's project of 13.2 MW which was
commissioned in June 2020. These projects have been almost washed away. Of the 170 missing 148
are those who were working for the Tapovan project and 22 were working for the
Rishiganga project. The people working in these projects were trapped in two
tunnels. From one tunnel 16 people were rescued by the Indo-Tibet Border Police
(ITBP). However, in another tunnel which is 2.5 km long around 30 people are
trapped and there is no communication with them and the rescue team was in
action till last reporting. The floods damaged five bridges and many houses and
several villages were evacuated. The government of Uttarakhand, ITBP and the
Disaster Management apparatus of both centre and state swung into action and
the downstream towns were timely alerted and further damage of life and
property was prevented. The Prime Minister, Home Minister and Uttarakhand Chief
Minister took control of the situation and The National Crisis
Management Committee met late Sunday evening and took stock of the situation
and ruled out the downstream flooding and asserted that there is no threat to
power projects in Alaknanda rivers at Srinagar.
The radar based flood
monitoring system developed by the Central Water Commission (CWC) with the help
of Kritsnam Technologies, founded by a group of graduates from IIT-Kanpur and
IIT-Kharagpur; the CWC was able to track real time situation and promptly alerted
the officials about the actual situation of water in the rivers in the entire
stretch. The manuals developed by the teams of National Disaster Management
Institute Delhi were also of help for timely preparation. These advisories
alerted the system and further loss of life, property and economy was averted. The
government swiftly dispatched medical teams and a 30 bed hospital was kept
ready at Joshimath and hospitals in Srinagar, Jolly grant and Dehradun were alerted.
Eight NDRF teams were mobilised and deployed, with
five tonnes of relief equipment, from Hindon Air Force base of Ghaziabad.
This is how the government
has reacted this time to the emergency situation and averted the confusion that
normally happens in such situation and showed the effectiveness of emergency
response system though its actual effectiveness will depend how it safely bring
back the 30 people trapped in the tunnel. That the glacier broke in the day
time also helped quick mobilization of resources but the moot question is why
such tragedies are happening time and again in this ecologically fragile area.
The things as it stand today in an era of climate change it clearly point to
palpable neglect of environment and ecology by both the local people and the
lackadaisical attitude of the government which time and again ignores the
expert advice. It is a well known fact that the 99 percent of the glaciers are
the 'ice sheets' and are located in higher altitudes of Himalayas. These
glaciers due to heavy snow, geological
changes underneath on account of gravitational forces, platonic movements and
global warming start breaking into pieces and melt down, create lakes and blockages
in rivers and become the ultimate cause of flash floods and immense damage to
men and material. This has exactly happened in the Dhauliganga River when the
glacier broke and whipped away the Rishiganga power project.
When the people, their representatives
and the government sit ideal such tragedy cannot be averted. The scientists of
Wadia Institute of Himalayan studies conduct details studies on the glaciers
and from time to time warn the state and central agencies to take preventive
measures. It is stated that eight months ago the Wadia institute had predicted
that the glaciers in Chamoli district may break but no alerts were issued.
However, the way development planning is undertaken there is hardly any scope
for preventive measures. Take the way 54 small and medium hydro projects have
been sanctioned in Uttarakhand during the past decades without caring for the
fragile ecology it only shows that many more disasters are in the offing. This writer in 1998 after the flash floods in
Rudraprayag led a five member team of Central government and after visit held a
meeting with the Divisional Commissioner and other officers in Dehradun and
submitted a report to the Agriculture Ministry in which we clearly recommended through
revamping in the development strategy. The reasons of the flash floods were
attributed in the report to lop sided building and road construction in slopes
which results in choking of drainages. The accumulation of waters in sub soil
and formation of mini lakes ultimately results in flash floods during rains.
The team had then recommended shifting of a few villages in route to kedarnath
and the entire region after through assessment of the geology and ironically
those 32 villages we earmarked in our report were washed away in 2013 Kedarnath
tragedy.
The crux of the matter is to completely review and restructure the
developmental planning in the hills of Uttarakhand specially the hydro power
project and use science and common sense to decide on such projects. There
should not be total ban but a rational decision making after all what was the
need in submerging the 'Dhari Devi' temple for just additional 50 Megawatt of power the in Srinagar project which
created a big hullaballoo and local agitations. Time to brace up for changes
and sooner the Uttarakhand people realize better it will be.
(Tripurainfo)