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. 13th
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 13th
June, should we not issue the advisory to the pilgrims at Kedarnath for early
evacuation on 14th or 15th 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 15th June onwards from Ram-Bada and Gauri-Kund
which indicates that people got the negative impact from 15th
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.
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