INTRODUCTION
In the past few days, the sacred town of Joshimath, situated in the Chamoli district of Uttarakhand, has been making headlines for all the wrong reasons. According to several reports, the complaints of the town's residents, that their land has been witnessing severe cracks, were verified. Not only the land, but the houses of these people have also appeared to develop cracks. A report by ISRO also said that the town is actually sinking and that it sank over 5.4 cm in just 12 days. Following this, several families are being evacuated to safer places. This tragedy has forced people out of their own houses and towns. Several measures are being taken by the government to save the town and its people. Relief funds are announced too, for the families affected. But these are all temporary solutions. Mother nature is furious and it shows. It is high time to realise that this might just be the beginning of an end.
ABOUT JOSHIMATH
Based in the Chamoli district of Uttarakhand, the sacred town of Joshimath, often spelled as Jyotirmath, is located on the Rishikesh-Badrinath National Highway (NH-7) at a height of 6,150 feet (1,875 m). It is a gateway to several Himalayan mountain climbing adventures, hiking paths, and pilgrimage sites. With a population count of over 20,000, the town has visibly shown changes and its fragility over the years. Joshimath is the site of an ancient landslide
It is home to one of the four monasteries established by Adi Shankaracharya in the four cardinal directions — Sringeri in Karnataka, Dwarka in Gujarat, Puri in Odisha and Joshimath near Badrinath in Uttarakhand.
The town of Joshimath is also nicknamed as Jyotirmath and is the winter seat of Lord Badri, whose idol is brought down from Badrinath temple to Vasudeva temple at Joshimath. It is an important pilgrimage spot for the Hindus of our country. Joshimath is also of great strategic importance to the Indian armed forces and is home to one of the army's most important cantonments.
GEOLOGICAL VULNERABILITIES
A report published by the logical Indian states that, with a population count of over 20,000, the town has visibly shown changes and its fragility over the years. Joshimath is the site of an ancient landslide.
The first ever report that pointed to the impending dangers lying ahead in Joshimath was a 1976 report by the government-appointed Mishra Commission. It conveyed the crucial piece of information that Joshimath is located on the site of an ancient landslide, and any form of unplanned construction could potentially dig up a grave for the town. It paved the way for many future studies that confirmed that the biggest reason contributing to Joshimath's sinking is the geography of the city.
Geographically, a 2022 survey conducted by researchers from the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology found that the gneissic rocks in the region are highly weathered and have a tendency to high pore pressure when saturated with water, especially during monsoons. The impact of extreme rainfalls is often visible in satellite data, which shows mountain streams expanding their channels over the course and posing a threat of instability on the already fragile belt. Apart from the monsoons, there's also a good amount of erosion noticed with the running streams from Vishnuprayag flowing along the town
Piyoosh Rautela, executive director of the Uttarakhand State Disaster Management Authority (USDMA), had once conveyed that the "Large boulders of gneisses and fragments of basics and schistose rocks are embedded in the grey-coloured, silty-sandy matrix. This makes the town highly vulnerable to sinking."
All of this indicates that the region's land and soil have a very low capacity of being held together. Adding on to this, an earlier report from 2006 had observed that the drainage system of the town of Joshimath is not well maintained, placing the town at even more risk. Furthermore, the city built over landslide debris was found to have a low bearing capacity, and many experts have long warned that it cannot support a high rate of construction. According to a report by ABP Live, these warnings since 1976 were not paid much heed to,
JOSHIMATH SINKING
As per News18, cracks appearing in homes made national headlines in 2021 after the Chamoli landslide. Residents then began using wooden poles to prop up their homes.
On 22 December, part of the Helang-Joshimath highway caved in entirely. Then, on Monday, residents were alarmed after hearing sounds coming from the ground.
Cracks have appeared in homes, roads, and even agricultural fields. The cracks have spread across all nine wards.
So far, 561 houses in various areas of the town have developed cracks, including 153 in Ravigram, 127 in Gandhinagar, 71 in Manoharbagh, 52 in Singhdhar, 50 in Parsari, 29 in Upper Bazar, 27 in Suneel, 28 in Marwadi and 24 in Lower Bazar, District Disaster Management Officer N.K Joshi said.
According to the Indian Express "Satellite images released by ISRO's National Remote Sensing Centre on Friday show that Uttarakhand's Joshimath witnessed a rapid sinking of 5.4cm in just 12 days — between 27 December 2022 and 8 January 2023.The images and report have come just days after cracks appeared in many roads and hundreds of houses in the city, which has now been declared as a landslide and subsidence-hit zone by the authorities. So far, a total of 168 families have evacuated to temporary relief centres.
REASONS
A survey by Dehradun-based Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology conducted in 2022 found that gneissic rocks in the area are highly weathered, have low cohesive value, and are prone to high pore pressure when saturated with water, especially during monsoons.
The three main factors behind these landslides are Joshimath’s vulnerable foundations, as it was developed on the rubble of an earthquake-triggered landslide more than a century ago, its location in seismic zone V, which is more prone to earthquakes, plus gradual weathering and water seepage that reduce the cohesive strength of rocks over time, director of the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology Kalachand Sain told PTI.
NTPC Hydro Power project is one of the reasons why the Joshimath surface is facing instability. The Tapovan Vishnugad Hydropower Plant is a 520 MW run-of-river hydroelectric project, which has led to the ground and river of Joshimath being disturbed.
Tourism and construction activities in Joshimath are of prime reasons why the town is sinking, as per experts. The town sees a footfall of lakhs every year, which is why the landslide-prone ground is facing instability.
The increasing population and tourism in Joshimath have given rise to a lot of development such as an increased number of restaurants and hotels, which further leads to developmental projects and construction activities.
Joshimath is a former landslide and earthquake zone, which means that the majority of the town has been constructed on the debris of landslides, leading to smooth and eroded rocks and loose soil on the surface.
Experts say that Joshimath is located in seismic zone V which is more prone to earthquakes besides gradual weathering and water percolation which reduce the cohesive strength of the rocks over time.
WARNINGS
A report in Deccan Herald stated that, Experts and residents have long warned that large-scale construction in and around the town, including work for power projects by companies such as state-run NTPC, could lead to land subsidence-- a phenomenon wherein the ground surface sinks or settles down.
Despite environmental vulnerabilities, a number of hydro-power plants were sanctioned around Joshimath, the biggest of which is NTPC’s 520 MW Tapovan-Vishnugad project on Dhauliganga river that experienced the February 2021 flash flood killing more than 200 individuals.
While the Tapovan Vishnugad hydel dam has been attributed as the major trigger for the subsidence, tunnelling work for the Char Dham project has also added to the town's woes.
However, experts had warned about the dangers to the city long before.1976: Mishra Committee Report. The first report in 1976, titled 'Mishra Committee report' stated that Joshimath is situated on a deposit of sand and stones, all the while lying on an ancient landslide and is unsuitable for a township. The undercutting of Alaknanda and Dhauliganga rivers have also played a major part to bring landslides.
“Joshimath is a deposit of sand and stone — it is not the main rock — hence it was not suitable for a township. Vibrations produced by blasting, heavy traffic, etc., will lead to a disequilibrium in natural factors…” the report said.
Amid the ongoing tragedy of joshimath in Uttarakhand, an old video of sushma swaraj has surfaced on the Internet. In the video, while speaking in the parliament, she strongly opposed the construction of dams on the Ganga river to save the state. "Whatever amount of money may have been spent over them (dams), it will be less than the amount that will have to be spent over relief and rehabilitation of the displaced," she had said in 2013.
SUFFERING PEOPLE
As per NDTV, over 60 families living in damaged houses in the sinking town have been evacuated to temporary relief centers, a senior official said on Sunday. At least 90 more families have to be evacuated. The local administration has set up relief centers at four-five places in the Himalayan town, Garhwal Commissioner Sushil Kumar said.
"This is my maternal home. I got married at the age of 19. My mother is 80 years old and I have an elder brother. We built this home by working hard and making an earning. We lived here for 60 years but it is all ending now," a resident, Bindu, was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
Tourism will be affected due to this tragedy. Tourism is one of the main sources of income for people of this town owing to its diverse and beautiful flora and fauna along with being a favorite pilgrimage center for the Hindus of the country.
Sooraj Kotiyal, who runs and manages a hotel called "Saidham," near Auli Road, told OT (Outlook Traveller) that there are no tourists to be seen in the city at a time which used to be the peak season for them. "In January and February, Joshimath used to be full of tourists. But there are none now. The only people staying in my hotel are families who were asked to move out of their homes. You could see the cracks on the road roughly a few hundred meters from my hotel." Kotiyal added that he foresees his business gradually moving towards "zero."
These people have become the victims of nature's fury and are being forced out of their own houses and places. The emotions and memories attached with this town, various celebrations and traditions, dreams, hard work, and everything will be evacuated along with its people.
WHEN WILL OUR EYES OPEN?
The tragedy of Joshimath is an example of how the man is destroying it's very own planet for selfish reasons. The short term gains by developing poor and unplanned projects are only deteriorating mother nature in the long run. BUT WHEN WILL OUR EYES OPEN? When will humans stop putting the lives of its own and other species in danger?
The government giving relief funds and evacuating people to safer places are temporary solutions. But if preventive measures would've been taken at the right time, the lives of thousands of families could've been saved. That is why it is said 'Prevention is better than cure'.
According to Truescoop, experts working on the matter have recommended a complete shutdown of the entire hydroelectric projects and developmental works in the region, but above there is an essential urge to relocate residents in the region at the earliest to a safer place and then work to find the new variables for resettling.
The drainage system needs to be taken care of, studies and surveys have found that the city is grieving through poor drainage and sewer management system, due to which the waste is seeping into the soil, loosening it from within. The government has asked the Irrigation department to work on the matter and create a new plan for the concerned matter.
Replantation is essential in the region, moreover, at the sites where things stand more vulnerable, while there is a need for a coordinated effort between the government and civil bodies with the aid of military organizations like the BRO to save Joshimath.
Environmentalist Vimlendu Jha had warned that this could just be the start and many more towns are likely to witness a 'sinking tragedy' in the future. "All the coverage on Joshimath will show you visuals of haphazard construction n tilted homes with cracks, and also build a narrative that it is the main reason for the disaster. That’s half the truth and a coverup exercise, to protect the main CULPRIT," said Jha in a tweet.
CONCLUSION
It is high time that everyone realises that everything we've been reading and learning in the books and papers is happening for real. Development is happening, but at what price? The earth is in danger and this might just be the start. All the projects and constructions leading towards the harassment of the environment and this planet should be halted immediately. Measures to save the planet should be taken now, rather than taking measures to save the people later.
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