The Indian Armed Forces had run a massive rescue operation in the flood-hit state of Uttarakhand. Credit: Courtesy Ministry of Defence, Government of India

By Malini Shankar
DEHRADUN, India, Jul 2 2013 (IPS)

Over 580 bodies have so far been found. Hundreds more will likely never turn up. Survivors say they are suspended in a kind of nightmare, either haunted by memories of their brush with death or desperate for news of loved ones. At least 3,000 are reported to be missing.

A fortnight after massive floods trapped thousands of tourists and pilgrims in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand, frantic search and rescue operations are still under way.

Known as the Land of the Gods, this Himalayan state was tranformed from an idyllic prayer site into hell on earth when, on Jun. 15-17, torrential rains and flash floods caused by a cloudburst swelled the two headstreams of the holy river Ganga, which carried off thousands of people along with roads, homes, shops and large chunks of the mountains.

At the time of writing, only the pilgrimage town of Badrinath has been completely evacuated.

“The death toll is expected to increase after search and rescue operations cease and recovery commences,” he said, adding that the list of missing will be confirmed by Jul. 15.

Headlines and searchlights have largely focused on immediate events, bypassing the long-term, structural implications this tragedy will have on disaster management in India.

Already, the rescue operation is straining from a lack of coordinated action: families fear that their missing loved ones, living on nothing more than prayers, will not last much longer, while experts warn that swift and sanitary disposal of the dead is vital to prevent the spread of diseases; some scientists even fear that an outbreak of plague in the Himalayas is not far off.

When a rescue helicopter crashed in a valley thick with wildlife on Jun. 24, killing all 20 personnel on board, it provoked legitimate fears that the NDMA was floundering.

Confidence plummeted still further when a 3.5-magnitude earthquake struck Uttarakhand on Jun. 27, sparking panic that it would trigger landslides.

Requiring precision, highly trained personnel and a tight organisational command structure, search and rescue efforts have largely been entrusted to the armed forces.

Over the course of ten days the Indian Air Force flew approximately 2,000 sorties, averaging about one every five minutes, with help from the Indian Army, the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and the state police and civil administration.

An additional 600 sorties have so far carried 24 tonnes of food into the affected areas for survivors and the displaced.

Troops have helped erect temporary steel bridges at crucial access points, as many bridges and long stretches of road were washed away in the rapid waters.

Paramilitary forces like the ITBP and the NDRF are rescuing frail and infirm people trapped in tough terrain while drones scan caves and scour remote terrain to evacuate those stranded on riverbeds or clinging precariously to fragile, wet embankments.

Grateful to be alive, Shobha Karandalaje a politician from the South Indian state of Karnataka, told IPS, “It was a scary experience. We were on our way to Kedarnath (a popular pilgrimage town in Uttarakhand) when suddenly the downpour worsened; rivers were in full spate, land sliding all around us,” she recounted.

“We were stuck in our jeep for a full five days in Rudraprayag (a bustling town on the forest’s edge at the point of confluence of the Alakananda and Mandakini rivers), surviving on snacks, sipping water. We trekked back 35 kilometres to Yamunotri, where road construction workers helped us reach Dehradun (Uttarakhand’s capital) safely.”

Deforestation on the steep Himalayan slopes has increased the likelihood of landslides in Uttarakhand. Credit: Malini Shankar/IPS

Successful rescues notwithstanding, disappointment hangs thick in the air, with scientists lamenting that the tragedy could easily have been minimised if developers had heeded warnings about the fragility of the surrounding ecosystem and if the state government had paid greater attention to weather forecasts.

India’s NDMA, set up in 2005 after the calamitous Asian Tsunami of 2004, is tasked with taking measures to reduce the risk to human lives and livelihoods before calamities strike, embodying the “paradigm shift from the erstwhile relief-centric and post-event syndrome to pro-active prevention…” according to the official guidelines.

Determined to avoid a tragedy on the scale of the Boxing Day tsunami, the government invested huge amounts in forecasting services that could deliver accurate reports to the NDMA, which is expected to take all necessary measures to minimise loss of human life.

Accordingly, the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) issued a forecast of heavy rains in Uttarakhand starting Jun. 15, which failed to elicit a timely response from the state.

Addressing a press conference on Jun. 17, State Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna justified his government’s inaction by claiming that the “generic forecast (delivered ahead of the floods) was not actionable…(and) evacuating residents and pilgrims in the peak pilgrim season was impractical.”

He skirted allegations that unsustainable tourism development on the steep hill slopes coupled with forest denudation for the construction of numeours dams across rivers in landslide prone areas were largely to blame for the catastrophe.

Nor did he respond to activists’ long-standing grievances over mismanagement in disaster preparedness at the state government level.

Despite the Government of India approving a budget for a Doppler Weather Radar system capable of predicting a cloudburst, the state government has not granted the necessary land to house the forecasting equipment, effectively prioritising tourism development over disaster management.

Money for the acquisition of 200 satellite phones for the NDRF is also mired in bureaucratic delays, officials admit.

Being plugged in to a vast network of state and district-level offices, the NDMA should have monitored dam discharge, identified arterial routes for evacuation, stocked up on emergency supplies, created communication hubs and kept ambulances on standby in preparation for responding rapidly to forecasts.

Instead, the agency was caught off guard with barely minutes to prepare for the crisis.

The Central Water Commission, authorised to issue flood forecasts in India, failed to raise the alarm even on the night of Jun. 17 when the Mandakini River was already in full spate.

The CWC’s director of the flood forecast monitoring directorate, V.D. Roy, told IPS this was due to the fact that the raging water was technically “below the statutory warning level of 539 metres at (11 p.m.) on Jun. 17.”

But scientists and advocates refute this claim, insisting that the Commission ought to have foreseen the calamity heading for the most vulnerable regions of Uttarakhand like Uttarkashi, Hemkhund Sahib and Kedarnath.

Others accuse the government of failing to utilise India’s massive media apparatus to minimise the tragedy.

“Weather reports are disseminated to all public broadcasters, such as All India Radio and Doordarshan. If there is a specific warning, all broadcasters…should interrupt normal programming to disseminate this warning. This protocol must be developed and put in place,” NDMA Vice Chairman Shashidhar Reddy told IPS.

*Malini Shankar is a photojournalist, radio broadcaster and documentary filmmaker based in Bangalore, India.

The Indian Defence Force rescues a pilgrim after the floods in the northern state of Uttarakhand. Credit: Sujoy Dhar/IPS

By Sujoy Dhar
NEW DELHI, Jun 27 2013 (IPS)

On the outskirts of Rudraprayag, a town in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand whose many temples draw tourists and Hindu pilgrims with magnetic force, visitors often stop for a meal at a popular hotel built right on the river Alakananda.

One of the two head streams of the Ganga, the holy lifeline of India that gushes from the Gomukh snout of the massive Gangotri glacier in the Himalayas, Alakananda is revered as a goddess.

A night in the hotel is cheap, and budget tourists from home and abroad come here for the breathtaking view from balconies overlooking the mountains and glaciers that comprise 90 percent of the state.

As idyllic as it sounds, this hotel unwittingly played a role in one of the worst natural disasters the state has ever seen when, on Jun. 15, flash floods caused by a cloudburst and glacial leaks swept thousands of unsuspecting pilgrims away in what scientists are now referring to as a ‘Himalayan tsunami’.

The state’s chief minister said Thursday that the death toll could exceed 1,000, with 300 bodies found just this morning buried beneath silt beside the largest temple in the town of Kedarnath.

Countless tourists were trapped for days in pitiable conditions until the Indian Defence Force came to their rescue in one aerial sortie after another.

Thousands are still missing and many towns and pilgrimage sites remain inaccessible, as the raging waters carried away whole strips of roads, along with homes, shops and hapless victims.

As the government scrambles to complete a haphazard rescue operation, environmentalists are taking a step back, pointing out that the disaster was not simply a freak natural hazard but a result of unbridled development in the Land of the Gods.

Hydropower projects 

For years, a booming tourist industry, made possible by thousands of illegally constructed guesthouses, has spawned massive hydroelectric power projects on the rivers, while other infrastructure development designed to accommodate hoards of visitors has proceeded at a steady clip, putting undue stress on this fragile ecological zone.

Scientists also say the damming of the Ganga, riverbed encroachment and mining activities are wreaking havoc on the region.

“There (have been) no credible environmental or social impact assessments for hundreds of projects,” Himanshu Thakkar, coordinator of the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People, tells IPS.

According to Mallika Bhanot, member of Ganga Ahvaan, a public forum to save the holy river, about 244 dams are being constructed along the water channel, while only three were cancelled after a 100-km stretch, from the glacial mouth of Gomukh to Uttarkashi town, was declared an eco-sensitive zone (ESZ) in December 2012.

“Even that notification by the government in New Delhi has been opposed by the Uttarakhand government,” Bhanot tells IPS, despite the fact that it was designed after a thorough assessment of the topography, and with the intention of preserving human lives in a landslide-prone zone.

Frightening footage of the recent disaster captured multi-storey buildings collapsing into the river like a pack of cards, while cars, bridges and shops were easily swept into the vortex. Activists say all of this could have been prevented if the state government had heeded the call to cease construction and encroachment on the riverbed.

The New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) has also traced the link between the disaster and the manner in which development has been carried out in this unique region.

Acknowledging the economic importance of energy generation, CSE Director-General Sunita Narain questions whether or not “the Central or state government ever considered the cumulative impact of the hydropower projects on the rivers and the mountains.”

“Currently, there are roughly 70 projects built or (slated to be built) on the Ganga, expected to generate some 10,000 megawatts (MW) of power,” she told IPS.

She referred to this model as “bumper to bumper development”, with one project immediately following another.

Diversion channels and reservoirs will affect 80 percent of the Bhagirathi, the Ganga’s second head stream, and 65 percent of the Alakananda, Narain stressed. During the dry season, large stretches of the river will be completely dry.

Such activities, she said, are fantastically lucrative for developers, making it next to impossible for small environmental groups to have their voices heard.

“There is a strong construction lobby in Uttarakhand,” said Bhanot, adding that many politicians’ election funds come directly from hydropower projects.

Green alternatives abound, including electricity generation using smoke from burning pine needles to propel turbines; biomass; or mini hydro plants, capable of generating two MW of power. But these, less profitable schemes do not sit well with corporations.

Narain says this particular disaster cannot be attributed solely to climate change, but the growing trend of intense and extreme weather events – particularly a heavier, more unpredictable monsoon – is undeniable.

With climate change widely acknowledged to be the result of the burning of fossil fuels and emission of excessive carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, it is clear that the ongoing tragedy is human-induced, Thakkar said.

The glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) that poured down the mountains bringing boulders and rocks is just another sign that the delicate balance of nature’s forces has been disrupted – and Uttarakhand is paying the price.

Regulation required

Tourism may form the backbone of Uttarakhand’s economy, but it is now clear that visitors and pilgrims number too many: according to government data, 42.2 million domestic tourists and 227,000 foreigners flocked to Uttarakhand in 2012.

Those numbers are expected to double by 2017, with the state gearing up to welcome 77.7 million domestic travelers and nearly 400,000 foreigners.

These arrivals will be accompanied not only by increased human waste and pollution from transport, but also by endless construction of hotels and the justification of ever more mega development projects.

Experts like Thakkar insist that the sector be regulated based on a proper scientific assessment of the region.

This will not be easy, since tourism brings much-needed revenue to the state. The government estimates that each tourist spends an average of 38 dollars a day, much of which goes directly to the government via entrance fees for religious sites.

But while this income from “religious and cultural tourism is a lifeline for many, it will not be sustainable…(unless) all development activities take into account the vulnerability of the area,” Thakkar says.

The youngest mountain range in the world, the Himalayas are already prone to erosion, landslides and seismic activity.

“Development cannot come at the cost of the environment in any region of the country; but particularly not in the Himalayas,” Narain stressed.