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Floods in Himachal leave trail of destruction

ByChetan Chauhan/ Gaurav Bisht/Naresh K Thakur, New Delhi/shimla/dharamshala
Jul 13, 2023 01:09 AM IST

While rescue operations are on in full swing, the hill state of Himachal Pradesh continues to count loss of life and property caused by the devastating floods

Ram Sharma had just opened his small grocery shop in Thunag market in Mandi district of Himachal on Monday morning, amid heavy downpour. A short while later he received a call from a relative living in the upper hills of Thunag about a cloudburst and water gushing down a local stream. Sharma shouted at top of his voice informing others about the cloudburst. As there was frenzy in the market, he closed his shop and rushed with his family to the first floor of the three storied building in the market place having about 120 shops.

Massive devastation happened in the areas having high infrastructure development such as hydel project, hill cutting for widening of roads and destruction of forest cover for infrastructure projects (PTI)
Massive devastation happened in the areas having high infrastructure development such as hydel project, hill cutting for widening of roads and destruction of forest cover for infrastructure projects (PTI)

Within no time, he saw, muddy slush carrying tonnes of Deodar logs, bricks, stones came down with full ferocity, demolishing an old abandoned house and playing havoc in the small village town. Videos of slush flowing went viral on social media, bringing images of rain fury to national audience. Recovering from the natural onslaught, 62-year-old Sharma on Wednesday, recalled, “I have never seen such a thing in my life…I felt the water will consume us all.” He shared images of logs having the iron shutters of his shop and sludge entering his shops. “Nothing remains,” he said, as a pall of devastation gripped Thunag town.

Locals said that most of the logs that came down were dumped in a local stream when a road was constructed to connect the villages during tenure of former chief minister Jairam Thakur (2017-2022). Thakur’s village, Thandi, is just four kilometer uphill from Thunag town, the administrative centre of Thakur’s Seraj assembly segment, which saw unprecedented development works during his tenure. “Hundreds of illegally felled trees and muck was dumped in a seasonal stream running parallel. We are bearing the brunt of so-called development,” said a local resident, who was not willing to be named. Thakur inspected Thunag on Wednesday.

Lalit Kumar, another shop-owner, blamed the local authorities saying no warning was given of the cloud-burst or heavy rains. He was angry because a lesser intensity cloud burst has hit Thunag in 2022 and authorities have assured of putting a mechanism to alert them. “We were left to fend for ourselves. No help came,” Kumar said. Another resident Chaman Lal said they have “suffered unprecedented losses” which would be difficult to recover in a long time.

EXTREME EVENTS

The cloud burst in Thunag is a story of increasing cloud bursts and intensity. The Mandi district, which is worst affected, has witnessed at least three major cloudbursts since July 1, one each in Tunag, Pundoh and Seraj, clearly showing that what climate scientists have been telling for long --- intensity of cloudbursts is increasing because of climate change and local anthropogenic reasons. Several places such as Sainj in Kullu district that neighbours Mandi, Kasauli and Parwanoo in Solan district, and Rohru in Shimla district have witnessed flash-floods this monsoon due to localised cloudbursts. IMD Director Shimla Centre, Surender Paul said at least 29 flash flood incidents have been reported in the state since the onset of monsoon on June 24. More than 50% of these occurred during July 8-10.

Overall, Himachal has received 249.6 mm of average rainfall between July 1 and July 11 as compared to normal of 76.6 mm, highest for a 12-day period since 2005. Solan received four time the normal, Shimla 3.6 times, Bilaspur 3.2 times and Mandi double of the normal. As results of these extreme weather events, , Himachal has seen 72 deaths since June 1, of which 40 were reported between July 1 and July 11, the period of incessant and high intensity rainfall. Because of these rains almost all major rivers in Himachal were overflowing with Beas that passes through Kullu, Mandi and Bilaspur districts, breaking all previous records. For the first time in the history of 146-year-old Victoria Bridge in Mandi town, Beas flowed over the bridge and nearly submerged the historic Panchvaktra (Lord Shiva) temple. “The two withstood the fury of Beas but newly constructed four-lane Mandi-Manali highway gave in at several places. In fact, the river recovered its water flow area which the engineers tried to encroach to widen the highway,” said Puroshattam Sharma, a Mandi based ecologist.

Mansi Asher, who has published several papers on changing climatology of Himachal Pradesh, said, “There is enough data from the department of science and technology of Himachal government to suggest that frequency of cloudbursts have increased and so have landslides. The maximum impact was seen near the infrastructure sites which disturb the hills.”

A landslide risk assessment report by the Himachal government in 2022 said all 77 blocks having 18,577 villages are now landslide prone, which experts say, is because of replacement of old stone and clay houses with concrete ones and unprecedented destruction of forests for proliferation of apple orhcards and other horticulture crops. A report by the state’s department of science and technology said that monsoon flow of water in Satluj and Beas rivers has been increasing over the years, indicating increase in high intensity monsoon rainfall, even though winter water flow has reduced. “Warming of the hills in recent decades due to anthropogenic factors such as huge unplanned infrastructure development and loss of forest cover has also made monsoon more erratic,” said Renu Lata, a scientist at G B Pant Research Institute of Himalayan Environment and Sustainable Development. Principal scientist and climate change expert at the state’s Department of Science, Technology and Climate Change, Dr Suresh Attri, said the temperature in hill stations such as Shimla has risen by over one degree Celsius in past three decades and its impact is visible on more intensity rains, even though the overall rainfall in monsoon has not increased.

Onkar Sharma, Principal Secretary (Forests and Disaster Management), who is monitoring rescue and relief efforts, admitted that the extreme weather events were on the rise in the region and they need to adopt to these climatic changes. “Our data shows that damage and impact of to extreme weather events is increasing. The intensity of extreme weather events is increasing and its impact is getting widespread,” Sharma said.

DEVASTATION AND IMPACT

Himachal in recent years have witnessed unprecedented infrastructure development with the government converting several two-lane highways into four land ones for faster connectivity, including linking Shimla and Manali, two most sought after tourist destinations, to Chandigarh.

Both highways were epicentre of landslides in July with close to 100 landslides reported between Mandi and Manali since July 1 including washing away of the highway near Mandi town by overflowing Beas. Similarly, over 60 landslides were reported on Shimla-Chandigarh highway in the same period. Both highways were closed for couple of days because of high frequency of landslides. “There has not been single monsoon when Shimla-Chandigarh highway was not blocked since the unscientific widening of the road started five years ago,” said Jasmeet Singh, a frequent traveller between Shimla and Chandigarh.

In all, close to 1,200 roads in Himachal were blocked because of landslides since July 1 with Himachal Road Transport Corporation (HRTC), a state’s travel lifeline, suspending services on 1,700 of the total 2,500 routes its buses run on. “Massive widening of roads in Himachal has happened in the past few years with trees been cut and much thrown into small streams. With heavy rains, all the muck flew into the main rivers,” said a Himachal government official, who was not willing to be named. The state government had estimated that close to 20,000 tourists and trekkers were stranded all different locations with 13,000 of them being evacuated till Wednesday. “The inconvenience and hardship caused to local cannot be estimated,” said an official of State Disaster Management Authority.

The rains also caused damage to 1,369 water supply schemes, leading to no water supply in Shimla for four days and in Mandi town for three days. Large parts of the state were without electricity with 1956 transformers getting damaged, as per a government statement. Himachal chief minister Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu said efforts were underway to restore power supply in the districts. “Once the power is restored, the drinking water schemes will also be made functional,” he told reporters on Tuesday, adding that restoration work will take lot of time due to the magnitude of the disaster.

UNPLANNED DEVELOPMENT

Experts said that high impact of the rains was due to several factors such as proliferation of hydel projects, infrastructure development, unregulated construction including building of hotels and rampant river bed mining at several places.

The damage, a hydel project can cause during extreme weather event was evident in Pandoh town in Mandi district on July 3 when a cloudburst took place, second in less than a month. “The water has been dammed for the project uphill. When the cloudburst happened, tonnes of water without any warning was released causing huge loss to us,” said Amit Sharma, a local shop-keeper, whose vehicle got swept in the water released from the project.

Himachal has 813 dams with power generation capacity of 10,264 megawatt. The state is planning to harness 27,436 MW and, of that, 24,000 MW of power is planned from five major three basins of the state namely Satluj, Ravi and Beas, the rivers that over-flowed during July rains and inundated downstream plains of Punjab and cities such as Chandigarh, Patiala and Ambala. “We have seen, what has happened in the past 11 days because of rivers not being allowed free flow. If all these hydel projects get commissioned, ecology of the state will be doomed,” Asher said. Former Mayor of Shimla and urban development expert, Sanjay Chauhan, said most of the hydel projects have been planned without conducting proper scientific studies on its ecological and water flow impact.

The Himachal urban planning department officials were appalled at construction of a three-storey hotel on banks of Beas in Manali, which got swept away by the swollen river on July 8. The rule does not allow construction within 100 meters of river bank. Stating that construction of the hotel was matter of investigation, Himachal’s town and country planning department head KK Saroch, said they don’t allow construction at any cost within 25 metres of a river. “If someone violates it, we cancel the permission,” he said, without explaining the reasons for proliferation of hotels and homestays on river bank in places such as Manali.

Mohinder Seth, the president of the Himachal Pradesh Hotels and Tourism Stakeholders Association, admitted that the norm was violated regularly. Director State Disaster Management Authority, DC Rana, said there is an urgent need to discourage construction near waterways and promised to review the existing structures. “The SDMA has been warning individuals and departments about the risk, particularly due to the unpredictability of flash floods,” he said, adding that there is a need for guideline similar to Coastal Zone Regulation for development along the rivers.

The SDMA officials also said rampant sand mining activities on the river banks and beds has damaged the river ecology in the hills, whose impact is visible during heavy rains. “Smaller rivers in hills have changed their course because of unregulated sand mining,” a department official aware of the development said.

REVIEW NEEDED

Both Asher and Chauhan said massive devastation happened in the areas having high infrastructure development such as hydel project, hill cutting for widening of roads and destruction of forest cover for infrastructure projects. Asher, who runs a non-government organisation called Himdhara, said most of the infrastructure related development, especially along the highways, and increasing urbanisation has led to the rains playing havoc with life and property. “Various studies show that the state is now gripped in continuous cycle of cloudbursts, landslides and deaths, because of haphazard development, sometimes totally unregulated,” she said. Onkar Sharma admitted that the hills have been destabilised due to cutting and blasting for infrastructure projects and construction. “We witness record-breaking downpour and see its impact in the form of flash floods, flooding and hills coming crumbling down, which have been destabilized due to cutting and blasting for construction works,” he said. Sukhu, who had sought 4,000 crore from the Central government for the damage caused because of the rains, which he described as “heaviest” in 50 years, had promised to review of the infrastructure development so it meets to the ecological needs. “We will also come up with a plan to deal with impacts of extreme weather events,” Himachal government spokesperson Naresh Chauhan said.

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