Pandjab has faced its worst flood since 1988 in August this year. Water overflowing from the rivers Sutlej, Beas and Ravi destroyed several villages in the state. At least at least 34 people died at about the same time after intense collisions strengthened cashmere with the control of India and several parts of Pakistan. At the beginning of August, the village of Dhalli disappeared in the Uttarkashi district in Uttarakhand after the flood caused landslide.
This was August.
This is not the first time that the Indian Himalayan region has suffered such a disaster; Kedarnath floods are coming to mind and the 2021 catastrophe in Chamoli. And at least one thread passes through all these incidents: all of them were considered unprecedented natural acts.
Invisible hand
Experts have already stated that they call every event with a heavy blow “cloudburst”, which risks excessive simplification of disasters.
“Most of these natural disasters are not natural at all. Often it is a combination of two factors – climate change and development,” said ARUN B. Shreshta, head of advisor, climate and environmental risks, in the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICimod).
The Himalayas are the youngest mountains in the world and are a highly energy environment characterized by instability and variability. Soil landslides are often caused by severe collisions, slope fraud or seismic activity.
According to ICimod research, mountains are particularly susceptible to floods, cloudbursts, glacial eruptions of lakes and landslides.
The chief judge Br Gavai called the visual ersy of tree protocols hovering in the flood waters in Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Pandjab and Uttarakhand in the first September “very serious problem”.
“The protocols can be seen with flood waters. If it continues, we will not have any forests left. The whole villages are flooded in Panjab. Development is needed, but not at the cost of the environment and life,” noted Gavai 4. September.
No blanket
July 18, the bench of the Supreme Court of Justices JB Pardiwala and R. Mahadevan observed: “If things progress as they are on the date, there is no day far, when the whole Himachal Pradesh state may disappear in the thin air from the India map.
The bench also said that governments should not build revenue for the cost of ecological sustainability and accused human activity of deterioration of disasters.
“I think the Supreme Court is very right about it,” said Navneet Yadav, leading, humanitarian actions and reduction of the risk of disasters in India, India Caritas India.
He added that the development in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand cannot happen according to the same plans designed for metropolitan cities as Delhi and Mumbai.
“Every aspect of development should undergo a life cycle analysis. We should start looking at it in a completely different way to take into account the actual impact of climate change,” said Shreshta, who also emphasized the assessment of the load capacity before doing any project.
“Steps should be clearly defined before the honest and independent assessment of social impacts, in addition to the assessment of the impact on disasters, which should go through the process of democratic public consultation,” added HimaShu Thakkar, South Asia coordinator on dams, rivers and people.
The potential of a disaster
The Hindu Mountains are currently affected and organized by more tourists, the development of infrastructure development and energy production activities. Along with the lack of the correct assessment of impact on the environment, experts warned that the mountains were pushed for their ability to cope.
According to the Himachal Pradesh Energy Directorate, there are 1,144 hydroelectric power plants in the state, of which 721 are permit and investigation at different stages, 180 and 53 were under construction. The Center also approved the funds for the construction of new bridges and the expansion of roads.
Similarly, there are 40 operating hydroelectric power plants in Uttarakhand, while 87 others are planning and construction at different stages, all to increase the energy production capacity of the state.
All these construction activities include the use of heavy equipment to cut the mountains.
“Today we build highways without attention to how they can increase the potential of disasters,” Thakkar said.
As the Supreme Court’s bench noted on July 18, the proliferation of “development” work is associated with climate change to worsen the effects of rain and temperature changes.
On September 4, the Top Court also issued an announcement to the Indian National Motorway office after a petition that became 14 tunnels between Chandigarh and Manali during heavy rains.
The average temperature in the Himalayas Indian is growing faster than the global average, leading to a reduction in snow and greater snow melting. When the glacier melts, the water pools are in a new lake. If the rock barrier adjacent to the lake moves or breaks, all water can be released into the nearby river or runoff, leading to sudden and massive floods. These events are called the Glacier Lake (Glof).
According to Icimod, there were more than 25,000 secret glacial lakes in five main basins throughout the Himalayas by 2018, making the community and livelihood more and more risks.
“The worst kind of country”
“It is necessary to make changes in infrastructure with regard to such climatic variations – glaofs, landslides and even drought,” said Shreshta. “The Himalayas are at the turning point and we need an urgent course correction that compensates for the economy and energy. We need natural solutions with the involvement of local communities because they know the local landscape and the dangers that come with it.”
“Building climatic literacy among the locals who manage local government is important,” Yadav said. “Not only that all critical structures such as hospitals and schools must never be built in dangerous places, because these are immediate places located by any disaster. But unfortunately there is no reality. Most government schools are built on the worst type of land.”
The increase in tourism has also caused the demand for the land on which hotels, domestic and other facilities can be built, and this in turn increases local deforestation. In particular, Deodar trees come from the area and hold the soil in place.
“When you remove them, the soil is in boulders that will soon disrupt. And this erosion will increase the potential of the disaster in the area in terms of landslides and floods in the villages of Downstream,” Thakkar said.
He added that it should be possible to “develop” without tearing trees.
Ruparasagna.m@thehind.co.in
