Not just climate change, Chamoli disaster was human-induced

Stone quarrying, blasting of mountains and digging of tunnels in the base of the mountain system for two dams on Rishi Ganga and Dhauli Ganga rivers played havoc with the local ecology

Updated on: Feb 8, 2021, 12:15:51 IST

By Chetan Chauhan

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The glacial burst in the Chamoli district of Uttarakhand, killing at least seven persons with another 170 feared dead, is nature’s way of telling humans that it can strike back when the ecological balance is destroyed. That may sound mystical but the stone quarrying, blasting of mountains and digging of tunnels in the base of the fragile mountain system for the two back-to-back under-construction dams on Rishi Ganga and Dhauli Ganga rivers, despite warning by experts and ecologists, had played havoc with the local ecology.

Officials carry out search and rescue operation at Tapovan Tunnel, after a glacier broke off in Joshimath in Uttarakhand’s Chamoli district causing a massive flood in the Dhauli Ganga river on Sunday. (File photo)

And, climate change, held responsible for faster glacial melting, could have aggravated the situation. A 2019 report by Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development said that 36% of the volume of glaciers in Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) region will be gone by the end of 2100 if the world manages to keep the temperature rise within 1.5 degrees Celsius as mandated by Paris Climate Agreement. Though the disaster region may not strictly fall in the HKH, its findings confirm what has been said in various studies on faster melting of glaciers feeding the perennial Ganga from the upper reaches of Uttarakhand and China.

Also Read | Uttarakhand glacier burst: Day after tragedy, multi-agency rescue operations on

The data from the Indian Space Research Organisation’s resource centre on Himalayan glaciers reveals that melting of the glaciers in Central Himalayan catchment area, where Chamoli falls, has increased in the first 20 years of this century. A research based on the study of 650 glaciers spanning 2,000 kms and published in journal, Science Advances, in June 2019 showed that glacial melting has doubled since 2000 as compared to 1975-2000. The faster melting of hundreds of Ganga glaciers would impact livelihood of close to 600 million people living in the Ganga river basin from Uttarakhand to Bangladesh, and India’s economy.

Glacial melting and bursts are well-documented but little attention has been paid to the damage caused to the local ecology and loss of forest cover in the upper reaches of Central Himalayas for building hydel dams and construction of wider roads (read Char Dham road project) keeping environmental norms at bay. Villagers of Raini in Chamoli, now the epicentre of the Sunday disaster, had petitioned the Uttarkhand high court in May 2019 against illegal stone quarrying on Rishi Ganga river bed, blasting of mountains and improper muck disposal by contractors engaged in construction of Rishi Ganga hydel project. The district magistrate of Chamoli , asked by the high court to submit a report, found some of the allegations true.

The fragile upper reaches of Uttarakhand, source for several small riverine systems feeding Ganga, already has 16 dams and another 13 are under construction. The state government has proposed another 54 dams to harness hydel energy potential of these rivers. On Dhauli Ganga river, 8 back-to-back new hydel projects are proposed in addition to National Thermal Power Corporation’s Tapovan project, which was badly damaged in Sunday’s flash floods. Geologists say that such heavy drilling of a young and under-studied mountain systems such as Himalayas and loss of massive green cover for these dams were causing an irreparable damage.

Also Read | Uttarakhand glacier bursts: Panic and memories of 2013 floods

What should be an eye-opener for those pursuing the death of Himalayan ecology in the name of development is that rarely, anywhere in the world, two big disasters in a region have taken place in less than a decade. A similar flash flood caused by glacial lake burst ravaged the Kedarnath shrine at the peak of the pilgrimage season in June 2013, killing close to 3,000 people and leaving thousands missing. The death toll in Chamoli disaster is expected to be around 180.

There is enough data to suggest that severe flash floods due to glacial melt in Uttarkhand have increased post-2000 and if the present Himalayan destruction continues, it would rise further and would be more fierce. If we don’t stop this ecological catastrophe, the nature will strike back again, as it did in Kedarnath and Chamoli, and next time, it could be worse. So, saving Himalayas is the only option India has.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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