Know Disaster to NO Disaster

Last fortnight we all were seeing the massive disaster and its immediate impact in the Abode of God which is known as Uttarakhand.  The Ganges river basin got massive flood which converted this beautiful valley into a bad memories for thousands of people who came there as pilgrims for Char Dham Yatra as well as a big question of survival in front of millions of local people. So many questions are rising on the preparedness for Char Dham Yatra in this disaster prone zone and post disaster risk reduction and relief work.  So many agencies are involved into disaster management planning and post disaster mitigation and now every agency is trying to pass the ball into another court to get the clean chit on its responsibilities.

But this is not the question of various agencies and their responsibilities; this is the biggest question on our attitude and sensitivity. Attitude towards this highly sensitive eco-zone and sensitivity towards humanity and responsibilities.  Were we really prepared for this kind of disaster??? Did we ever visualize that kind of massive destruction and its impact??? Let’s start discussion on the preparedness first.

Himalayas is very new range of mountains which is in the developing phase. Every year we are seeing the flash flood and massive landslide in Kedar Valley. Last year we saw a big flash flood in Ukhimath and Fata in Kedar Valley but we dint understand the issue in real terms. We have law that no one can do the construction within the 100 meter both the side of river bed but the administration continuously promoting these things. We can see a range of hotels, dharmshalas, lodges along with river bed in every Dham . We invited the disaster for massive destruction somehow. Not only the encroachment on river bed, but we can see the encroachment in rivers also. In Kedarnath, we can see the encroachment in river Mandakini also where we hijacked the eastern river flow for hotels and lodges and did the massive construction there and when river followed its old flow route, we are calling it natural disaster. Is the nature responsible for this or we??? This is creating the big debate that “is this natural disaster or manmade disaster??”

Char Dham Yatra which one of the famous Yatra in India and the biggest annual event of Uttarakhand in which millions of pilgrims participate from all over the country with few international pilgrims. This Yatra generally starts from the foot step of Himalayas that is Rishikesh.  There is no registration system for these pilgrims, no planning of private vehicle parking in hilly region, no track record of the pilgrims in hills. Have we ever thought on this issue? So many people are coming in Himalayan region and the majority of the people are not adoptable for this kind of climate but there is no information of these people and no communication from Government side for dos and don’ts.  They are coming into their own private vehicle, are they capable enough to drive in hills??? Are there enough parking spaces for such vehicle in Gauri Kund (the base camp of Kedarnath), Gangotri, Janki Chatti (base cam of Yamunotri) and Badrinath??? When we raise these questions, we don’t find the answers. These questions would help us to handle the post disaster quick relief. After the flood, the relatives of the pilgrims were not getting the information for their family members which created the panic among the society and resulted in lack of confidence for the administration which should not be there.   

Now we will talk the administration role in during disaster and post disaster events. 13^th June was the date when we got the huge rainfall in Uttarakhand. We could have measured the rain fall from that time and kept our eye open on each and every movement of weather. Did we notice the Chorabari Glacier and Gandhi Sarovar for their capacity??? Could we use the information from NASA and ISRO??? Did we have proper co-ordination with technical wing of weather forcasting department??? If we were getting continuous rainfall since 13^th June, should we not issue the advisory to the pilgrims at Kedarnath for early evacuation on 14^th or 15^th June? Should we not stop the Yatra at Rishikesh??? Should be not use the technology for the mass communication to reach out the local public??? This is raising the question on attitude and sensitivity of administration.

We got the information that people are missing from 15^th June onwards from Ram-Bada and Gauri-Kund which indicates that people got the negative impact from 15^th onwards. Where was the local administration at that time??? After the heavy rainfall should they not coordinate with other districts for the information of flood so that other lower areas as Srinagar, Dev-Prayag etc could have been safe after the high alert in upper part??? 

In totality we can analyse the problem into 3 major parts- 1. We could not visualize the problem ever. 2. We were not ready for Char Dham Yatra and its related preparedness. 3. We had a big lack of coordination and communication in post disaster event.