After the cloudburst

Till last week,the tiny village of Saboo,with a few score houses,was the pride of Ladakh. It was a model village in Leh district ...

Till last week,the tiny village of Saboo,with a few score houses,was the pride of Ladakh. It was a model village in Leh district and a favourite of tourists who wanted a feel of traditional Ladakhi life. All that changed at midnight on August 5 when a torrent of rain washed away the kuttcha houses of Saboo,the epicentre of the infamous cloud burst that caused close to 200 deaths,with hundreds still missing. The official death toll at Saboo is eight,though it may go up as workers dig through the slush.

Apart from the cloudburst and the series of torrential rain,the real damage was done by the twin streams of water that flowed down from Saboo after the cloudburstone towards Leh city and the other towards the heavily populated Choglumsar village. Here is where the unique topography of Ladakh,loose mud and crumbling rocks,turned deadly for its inhabitants.

With hardly any vegetation,the water that entered Leh city brought down two sides of a mountain. The mudslide engulfed everything in its waybuildings,the main road in town and dozens of vehicles. The other stream was even deadlier. The water from Saboo headed towards Choglumsar village,located in a Valley barely 15 km from the main town on the Manali highway. A large portion of the village was smothered in several feet of slush within minutes.

As officials and the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Developmental Council LAHDC struggle to assess the damage,senior officials of the administration admit that it could take the district more than two years to recover from the aftermath of the devastating floods.

The damage to the roads and bridges is so severe that it is impossible to reach some of the affected areas and villages. Over 40 per cent of the roads and bridges are completely destroyed and remaining are damaged to a large extent, says Chering Dorjay,chairman of LAHDC.

The immediate priority is to restore road connectivity,something the Army and the Border Roads Organisation BRO will focus on. Its important not just for relief operations but also because the roads are vital to sustain the thousands of troops deployed on the borders with Pakistan and China.

In the district headquarters of Leh,while one team is coordinating relief efforts,another team is slowly getting ground reports from the villages. This team of revenue officials is making a tally of the houses damaged in the rains. Besides the houses that have been razed to the ground,hundreds have several feet of mud inside that would take several weeks and manpower to dig out. The ambient weather,which is slowly drying the mud,is complicating matters.

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Immediate relief will soon be available in all affected areas but the reconstruction and rehabilitation will take many years. We are currently in the process of assessing the extent and amount of damage and preparing a detailed plan, Dorjay says.

With winters just two months away,the challenge is to provide solid shelters to those rendered homeless,though there are no official numbers yet. More than 10,000 people have camped out at the worlds highest golf ground that is maintained by the army. The entire golf course is dotted with tents and temporary shelters made of discarded parachutes. Not all are homeless; some are simply too scared to go back home where they saw neighbours get swept away. While the August weather in Leh is perfect for camping outdoors,in a few months,a night out in a tent would mean sure death due to the extreme cold.

The waters also swept away everything that the people of Ladakh had carefully stocked for the winter months. Each household is uniquely stocked with items that have been carefully catalogued through generations. At any given time,most households will have 2-3 months of supplies required to sustain a family. From fuel,food and medicines,to livestock and emergency stores,all families ensure that they are prepared for the long winters that invariably cut them off from the rest of the country.

As it is,we are behind schedule. Because of the situation in Srinagar,supplies have been coming sporadically. The loss of connectivity will further slow down things. Ensuring that we have enough resources to sustain people through the winters is going to be a challenge, says an officer tasked with relief operations.

The importance of being Ladakh

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The main reason for the coordinated rescue-and-relief efforts in Ladakh was the massive presence of armed forces in the region. Within hours of the floods,the army and paramilitary forces moved thousands of troops for rescue efforts. The air force worked overtime to clear the airstrip of six inches of slush,making it the regions only link to the outside world.

The armed forces have a dominating presence in Ladakh and with good reason. The district has the unique distinction of having two disputed international bordersChina on one hand with the Line of Actual Control,and the Line of Control with Pakistan. In addition,the picturesque Nubra valley starts off from the worlds highest battlefield,the Siachen glacier.

After the Kargil incursion,the Indian armed forces had bolstered their presence throughout the Ladakh region. All parts of the border are fully manned and kept under observation. According to Pakistani military officers,the objective of the Kargil war was to cut off the Kargil-Leh highway and squeeze supplies to the Siachen glacier. They thought this would give them an advantage over Indian troops and help secure the glacier.

The army is also a concerned about the winter stocks for the thousands of troops on the border as well as on the glacier. If,sources say,it takes longer than expected to restore the road link,the air force will mount a war-scale air-lift to ensure that troops are adequately provided with winter supplies.