What we have on our hands in the Garhwal Himalayas in Uttarakhand is a man-made disaster of unforgivable magnitude, and not death and devastation caused by nature’s fury, which appears to be a lesser factor when the overall situation is considered. And behind the unmitigated failure are politicians — cutting across party lines — who come to the aid of sand-mining, stone-quarrying, forest-cutting, and construction mafias by bending or breaking rules, or bringing about rules and regulations that strike at the ecological balance of a sensitive region in order to line their pockets. More than 200 hydroelectric projects on the Mandakini and the Alaknanda, the small tributaries of the Ganga before it enters Hardwar, have been sanctioned.
Uttarakhand chief minister Vijay Bahuguna has called the calamity a “Himalayan tsunami”. Stronger words could hardly have been employed even by the government’s harshest critics. Perhaps the CM’s language is with an eye to Central assistance on a significant scale, for the `1,000-crore package offered by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the first instance seems a pittance. Nevertheless, Mr Bahuguna’s description appears candid. We hope he has the perseverance and the political backing of his party and the Centre to set matters right. It would, indeed, be an achievement if he even tries, unlike his recent predecessors.
Officially about 100 persons are said to have died. But some 70,000 are missing. There are unspoken hints that thousands — local residents, tourists to this very picturesque region, and Hindu pilgrims to Kedarnath and Badrinath — may have perished.
It is reasonably clear that the civil administration in the state, as well as the National Disaster Management Authority, have been caught unawares. They should not have been as this part of the country is prone to disaster — heavy rains, flash floods, land slips, and earthquakes on account of the fact that the Himalayas are fold mountains and among the world’s newest, and they are being stripped bare by mercenaries with political connections. But so ill-prepared are they in terms of work culture and equipment that they have made it a habit of being surprised. Relief is being provided in the main by the armed forces.
It is true that the monsoon rains arrived unexpectedly early, and the precipitation was four times the norm in a space of a very few days. The latter aspect would have made relief and rescue difficult, and there might have been a big toll of life and property in any case. But so ill-prepared are we to cope with the smallest deviation from the normal that lives are lost and property destroyed, year after year, even when the rainfall in this ecologically fragile region does not exceed the norm.