Opinion Uttarkashi tragedy is a warning. Respect the mountain

Three days after flash floods wreaked havoc in Uttarkashi district in Uttarakhand, more than 50 people from Dharali village, the epicentre of the disaster, are reported missing. At least four people have lost their lives as mountainsides collapsed and floodwater inundated homes and destroyed shops, hotels and other commercial establishments. Authorities have reportedly said that it will take about a week to gauge the scale of the calamity. However, it’s clear that the devastation underlines multiple challenges for policymakers, including planning development in ways that do not hurt Western Himalaya’s ecology.

The Central Water Commission initially ascribed the flash floods to a cloudburst. However, India Meteorological Department officials have reportedly contradicted this hypothesis, and the jury is out on the exact cause of the disaster. Uttarkashi’s topography — much of the district is located on the southern slope of the Himalaya — combined with continuous rainfall, does make the region vulnerable to mudslides and flash floods. In the mountains, even small streams are known to swell up during the monsoons, change course and turn treacherous. In recent years, the melting of glaciers has exacerbated such risks. Nature’s vagaries, however, are only a part of the reason for the sufferings of Uttarkashi’s residents. The region is a part of the Bhagirathi Ecosensitive Zone (ESZ). The ESZ status, notified in 2012, was meant to provide a security net against unregulated development to a 4,100 sq km expanse between Gangotri and Uttarkashi town. The purpose of the notification has been defeated because the rights of passage of the region’s rivers have been constantly violated. In their zeal to expand tourism, the Centre and the Uttarakhand government appear to have shown inadequate sensitivity to the vulnerabilities of the area, and repeatedly ignored the red flags raised by members of the committee that monitors the implementation of the ESZ norms. Experts reckon that the chipping away at rocks to widen roads and constructions on the floodplains could have made Tuesday’s disaster more severe.

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Constant rainfall and huge mounds of muck, almost like quicksand, have made the task of the rescue workers difficult. Bolstering climate resilience would require creating swifter and more effective responses to such exigencies. It would also call for establishing more automatic weather stations and utilising data from satellite-based observation systems to create early warning mechanisms. The writing on the wall has been clear since the disastrous flash floods of 2013 in Uttarakhand: Policymakers need to join the dots between climate change, the risks faced by people in the Himalayan region, early warning and disaster management systems and developmental initiatives. Tuesday’s tragedy is a warning that this imperative cannot be put off for long.