seen floods and landslides, resulting in huge losses of life and property. The loss in property will take years to be estimated with roads, bridges having flown with the
gushing waters, houses vanished and towns being buried under silt upto 8-10 feet high in some areas. The official death toll has crossed the 500 mark but the final
numbers can be much more with many people still missing and are presumably dead. The rubble and debris from the gushing waters, which even carried huge boulders and
rocks, loosened due to landslides are strewn all over the towns and what were once commutable roads.
The Uttarakhand state has been held in part responsible for the tragedy and the disaster management capability of not only the state but the whole country has come into
question yet again. Disaster response mainly comprises of three important stages- preparedness, mitigation and rehabilitation. It is when taken as the judging grounds,
the state and our disaster management have been found wanting. As the reports are now coming out as to what led to the sudden flooding and walls of water running into
the Kedarnath shrine, the IMD and the state can barely be held responsible (in terms of immediate causes, the illegal and unsafe constructions, the disaster in waiting
due to negligence towards the ecology of the area are causes which were in the making over the years and require a different platform all together to be discussed).
The monsoon in India were progressing at almost the average rate (a little slower than normal to be precise), covering parts of central India and eastern India on
June 14, but in an unprecedented phenomena, the winds suddenly covered whole of the country in the next 24 hours, with rains reaching even Northern India. Another
factor which aided the monsoon trough moving up north-west was the shift of the Arabian Sea branch of monsoons from Pakistan to North West India due to a sudden surge
in the jet streams in the upper atmosphere, pushing the rain bearing winds into India and the low pressure trough from Rajasthan to Northern India. Monsoons in
themselves are very difficult to predict and this sudden change made it even more so. Hence, string warnings which could have led to the pilgrimage being stopped did
not come in with the kind of urgency needed and also the suddenness made it almost impossible for the state to make people aware of what was coming. In fact, in
hindsight, it seems even the state got a feel of the enormity of the situation only after it actually occurred. The reports suggest that the moraine lakes around the
Kedarnath shrine, due to torrential rains were suddenly filled up, with water flowing over the moraine walls, leading to a breach and hence copious amounts of water
running over the whole region. Such was the ferocity of incessant rains that the usually unstable rocks (made more so by the continuous constrution activity in the
ecologically vulnerable region), became apart of the flowing waters increasing the damage exponentially. The state and disaster response teams hence were not prepared
for the immediate effects of a sudden flood but then the preparedness towards landslides in an unstable area, the absence of flood control measures in an area where
glacial lakes are continuously building, and the lacklustre approach towards the possible effects of ablating glaciers in the summer months deserves to be catered to
and on a war footing.
The disaster has clearly shown that once the tragedy struck, in the absence of proper mitigation preparedness, which is a responsibility of the state machinery as well
as the NDMO, the effects only increased exponentially. The terrain of the area has always been rugged, the roads often inaccessible and the region prone to landslides,
hence these should have always been taken into account in planning any mitigation efforts, but as the response right now is, it shows that may be these things and
factors were never made a part of the plan.
The rehabilitaion again is very slow and the state has again been found wanting. If not for the armed forces of ITBP, BSF, CRPF and CISF , many pilgrims would still be stranded.
The state now needs to make sure thatwith the weather improving, therescue operations are taken up on a mass scale and people made to reach safer areas. The relief
products in terms of food, clothing, blankets have been made available in abundance and the state machinery should take up the responsibility of sending them to areas
where they are needed. Taking care of pilgrims is only one part, the other major effort would be rehabilitating the thousands and lakhs of residents who have lost their
houses, life earnings and sources of income. The help is coming in from all quarters and the Indian prepared towards post-disaster action will again be tested, in
avoiding plagues, taking care of dead bodies and quick, appropriate rehabilitaion of those who have suffered unbelievable losses.
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