India, the calamity capital of the world

"We come to Delhi from different places with the dream of cracking the civil services exam but if we are unable even to follow our aspirations in safety, then what is the purpose of it all?” This is the plaintive cry of 20-year-old Vani Awasthi who travelled from Bareilly to Delhi to attend classes that would help her prepare for the UPSC entrance exam.

Right now, she is lying in a hospital in New Delhi, her left side paralysed. Vani was electrocuted while trying to record her attendance on 27 July, using a biometric device which was in contact with a live wire. On the same day, three other students were trapped in the flooded basement of a coaching centre in Old Rajinder Nagar — and drowned.

Heavy rains on that fateful day caused such severe waterlogging, it brought Delhi to its knees. If the capital city can face such massive disruption, what might be the fate of the rest of the country?

A macabre dance of death is being played out across India, where one disaster comes crashing on the heels of another. The trigger for these catastrophes is climate change but what hastens them is rampant construction in the name of ‘development’, regardless of the damage being inflicted.

Scientists, led by Dr C.P. Rajendran from the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru, have repeatedly warned against this. “Be it widening roads or making long tunnels, the authorities have allowed the overburdening of our fragile ecosystem beyond its carrying capacity,” Rajendran said. “We are now witnessing the consequences of human interventions that contribute to the intensity of these disasters, adversely impacting the lives and livelihoods of the people.

"The fact is, both central and state governments have been pushing for a flawed development model. Avalanches and floods are part of recurrent natural processes but these become major disasters in ecologically sensitive regions. The rise in tourism has led to a construction boom in unsafe zones, such as river valleys, floodplains, and slopes vulnerable to landslides.”

This is exactly what is happening across our Himalayans states and most recently, in Wayanad, Kerala. Over 250 people died when landslides hit the villages of Chooralmal, Mundakkai, Attamala and Noolpuzha in Wayanad district, wiping out houses, shops, resorts and bridges, making it the worst environmental disaster in the history of the state.

The Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel constituted by the Union government and headed by noted ecologist Madhav Gadgil was emphatic in its recommendation that 75 per cent of the Western Ghats — 129,037 sq. km. spanning Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Goa and Kerala — be declared environmentally sensitive because of its dense forests and rich endemic flora and fauna.

Gadgil’s report was rejected by the Kerala government as being ‘anti-development’. Basic principles of conservation were thrown to the winds as hills were levelled for extensive road construction, illegal quarrying and increased commercial plantation. Fast-track construction accelerated the loosening of soil which, combined with heavy rainfall, unleashed the landslides we are witnessing, horror struck, today.

“It is a man-made disaster,” said Gadgil. “The government has abetted the exploitation of the environment.” And the people are paying the price for it with their lives.

The National Centre for Earth Sciences Studies, Thiruvananthapuram, has identified the Wayanad-Kozhikode border as being one of the most landslide-prone areas in the world. The Kappikalam landslide that occurred in 1992 claimed 11 lives, while a landslide in Valamthode in 2007 claimed four. In 2020, 60 people lost their lives when a massive landslide hit Kavalappara in Malappuram and Puthumala in Wayanad.

Prior to practically every disaster in the last two decades, warnings by scientists have been ignored. This latest one is no exception. The Puthumala gauge had recorded 572 mm of rainfall in 48 hours. On 29 July, the Hume Centre for Ecology and Wildlife Biology in Kalpetta issued a landslide warning at 9.30 am — 16 hours before the landslide struck on 30 July. Both disaster management and state-level agencies received the warning, yet failed in their duty to alert the district administration and local people.

N. Badusha, president of the Wayanad Environment Protection Committee said, “In Kerala, these landslides have been triggered largely by huge changes in land use. During the last ten years, 500 tourist resorts have come up around the ecologically sensitive Camel’s Hump Mountain alone. Rainfall patterns have also changed; we now witness much heavier rainfall.”

Despite knowing how vulnerable this region is, the government is going ahead with the tunnel connecting Puthumala to Muthappampuzha, for which Rs 3,500 crore has been sanctioned. Work on this 8.17-km tunnel has already started without studies being undertaken to understand its environmental and sociological impact. This could well end up destabilising the Western Ghats even further.

The situation is even worse in the Himalayas, where it seems no lessons have been learnt from the disaster that struck Kedarnath in 2013, resulting in the death of over 5,000 tourists. The Modi government has been promoting ‘spiritual tourism’ with a vengeance. The emphasis on numbers has seen 45 lakh yatris arriving every year. To facilitate their travel, a massive road-building exercise, the 900-km Char Dham highway project, was undertaken.

Not only have these so-called ‘all-weather’ roads failed to weather the storms, their construction has served to further weaken the hill slopes. Swept away by landslides or over-flowing rivers, hundreds of yatris lose their lives every year. Last year, over eight landslides a day were being recorded amidst heavy downpours and cloudbursts.

This year, on 31 July, a cloudburst along the rain-ravaged trekking route in Junglechatti near Kedarnath killed 17 pilgrims, leaving over 10,000 stranded. A 25-km route between Gaurikund and the Kedarnath road was washed away and the yatra suspended indefinitely.

Dehradun-based environmentalist Reena Paul points out, “Online registration of pilgrims to regulate influx has proved a failure. Only 2,000 people were ‘officially’ present near Kedarnath, whereas the actual numbers were over 10,000.”

Paul opines that the rise in ‘spiritual tourism’ is being aggressively promoted by the BJP governments. “People are being given monetary incentives to come to these places. This also explains the large number of kanwariyas — over 50 lakh of them arrived in Kedarnath on motorbikes to collect Gangajal, something unheard of earlier. All these ‘spiritual tourists’ leave tonnes of garbage behind. The litter around Haridwar is unbelievable,” Paul added.

On the night of 31 July, cloudburst incidents occurred simultaneously at four places in Himachal. One triggered heavy flooding,which caused the Malana Power Project Stage-1 dam to burst. This caused heavy waterlogging downstream, leading to extensive damage.

The same night, a cloudburst took place close to a 6MW power project in Samej (near Jhakri in the Rampur area of Shimla district). Two people died and 34 were reported missing. Following the cloudburst in Samej Khad, an 11-member family lost nine members, leaving only two survivors, Ashok Kumar Kedarta (42) and his 6-year-old step-nephew Monu.

Kedarta is a broken man. He said, “There is now little hope of finding my wife, children and other relatives. I wish their bodies could be retrieved so I can at least perform their last rites.”

Multiple cloudbursts were recorded in Mandi, Solan, Shimla and Kullu, leaving a trail of 26 dead and several missing. The entire village of Rampuran was washed away in a cloudburst. How does one explain this sudden increase in cloudbursts in an area where they were previously infrequent?

C.P. Rajendran elucidates: “A sudden downpour in the range of 100–250 mm/h covering a small spatial extent (for instance, 1 sq. km) is typically defined as a cloudburst event. Studies indicate that in recent years the frequency of such incidents has increased, perhaps due to increased anthropogenic activities and climate change phenomena.”

“The intensity of both heat and rain is rising in the mountains. The increase in the warming trend has facilitated the transportation of larger masses of moisture-laden air from the sea towards the Himalayan region. This changes the vertical circulation above the Himalayan mountains which leads to cloudburst events,” he adds.

Thus far, the monsoon season of 2024 has already seen 73 deaths and property worth Rs 648 crore damaged in Himachal. Sadly, neither civil society not monitoring systems, including the National Green Tribunal, are able to exert pressure on the government and corporate houses driving this disastrous environmental juggernaut.