Dharali tragedy: The night of terror

It had already been raining incessantly for a month. Then on the afternoon of 5th August, panic spread through the valley. First, we heard of the ice-rock avalanche at Dharali around 1.30 pm in the Khir Ganga stream. This was followed quickly by another ice- rock avalanche just 4 km downstream, at scenic Harsil. 

Then at 6pm, a cloudburst occured 10 km further downstream in the stream opposite Sukhi village. The next morning brought news of massive landslides and sinking in Bhatwadi, 40 km downstream from Sukhi, collapsing the highway and disconnecting the valley. 

We, the residents of Uttarkashi valley, went through a night of terror even as the Ganga turned coffee brown and swelled, heaving tonnes of debris; but worst was the fear that the 300m lake forming in Harsil would burst and wipeout everything downstream. Fortunately, that devastation did not occur. 

The 100km Gangotri valley from Uttarkashi to Gaumukh has been identified as highly vulnerable due to its steep slopes and high seismicity. Further, a critical watershed, being the origin of the Ganga, it was notified as an eco-sensitive zone in 2012, to be monitored with strict regulations. But since this step, the state govt has largely viewed this legislation as an obstruction to its development agenda and allowed violations with impunity. 

Hence, there is dense construction along the river, even within the prohibited 100m from mid-river and the floodplain zone. Although no land conversion to non-green is permitted except for locals, non-residents buy land and build large constructions freely. 

The Border Roads Organisation (BRO) that is responsible for road widening in the eco-zone under the Char Dham Pariyojana (CDP), applied for forest clearances to cut through pristine forests in the 20 km stretch around Dharali and Harsil in  2024.  Its application stated that there was no eco-zone in the area and no EIA was required.  Such blatant disdain for veracity, ecology and regulations in order to push an unscientific and short-sighted ‘development’ is at the heart of the crisis – not Nature.    

The ecozone has strictures that prohibit development on steep slopes, felling of trees, and construction along the riverbanks.  Yet mega projects which cannot comply with these measures, like the CDP road widening, are being passed. The CDP entails felling of 6000 old deodars from Jhaala to Bhaironghati stretch, which includes the devastated Harsil-Dharali area.  The 20km area where the disasters occurred is located on old glacial deposit from three cirque glaciers, and hence highly unstable.  A cirque glacier is bowl shaped thus increasing susceptibility of ice and water accumulation.  What binds and stabilises the glacial deposit in this area is the ancient deodar forest that is now being readied for felling.  The avalanche in the Dharali and Harsil glacial streams was from two of these cirque glaciers.   

In 2023, independent experts of the High Powered Committee (HPC), who were reviewing the CDP by Supreme court order, developed another design for road widening that provided a road width of 5.5-7m, specifically avoiding the felling of this critical deodar forest, without vertical hill cutting and debris generation, and the destabilisation of slopes.  They produced this design voluntarily and independently because the government official majority of HPC had voted for a 12m road blanket width, ignoring ecological vulnerability, muck dumping into riverbeds, and overlooking the 200-plus landslides triggered by then.  This alternate design document, specifically tailored to each nuance of the terrain and disaster-resilient, currently languishes in the ministries of the central govt.    

The current DPR of the BRO for the valley envisages cutting pristine forest in Netala for a bypass, felling 3000 trees.  This is in direct violation of HPC and Supreme Court which cancelled this project.  Yet, the BRO has asked for forest clearances stating that there is no eco-zone or EIA required; notwithstanding that Netala is right in the middle of the ecozone.  This DPR also includes the felling of the above-mentioned thick deodar forest stabilising the area of Dharali.  

In the 2013 floods, Dharali had also been flooded.  But ignoring regulations and caution, hotels and shops were allowed.  Repeatedly, by blindly following an agenda of unrestrained, unscientific development, the govt is putting its citizens and the Himalaya at risk.  No warning system can ever predict when or if an ice-break will occur, or where the Ganga will swerve when this loaded glacial stream charges into her. Hence, as seen, unsuspecting pedestrians and cars were overcome in seconds.  

In Harsil too, the roaring stream plunged right into the army camp, washing away army jawans in an eye-blink.  The first responders to the calamity were the army located there.  The district magistrate and other officials did not reach Dharali till 5th late night due to a landslide at Netala, 70 km downstream of Dharali.  As for us, the residents living downstream, we spent the night under the threat of a lake forming in Harsil and bursting its banks.  No one had any information or clue.  Locals kept each other informed through mobile, but dense fog blocked visibility in the afternoon, and thus the threat of being wiped out by a raging Ganga, dangled all night like a sword over our heads.   

This ice-rock avalanche in the two glacial streams of Harsil and Dharali, is of the same nature as the Rishi-ganga glacial break in Chamoli in 2021.  They are becoming frequent.  Months of non-stop rain are also becoming normal.  Cirque glacier has become a term the local has to understand to evaluate if the stream opposite his home can kill him one day.  And yet our development models remain unchanged.  

The centuries-old Kalpeshwar temple stands amidst excavated debris in Dharali; open testimony that glacial avalanches have occured here before.  And yet when the Prime Minister visited Harsil just five months back, he stood in the very spot of the disaster and fueling the tourism frenzy, proclaimed a new ‘sun-bathing’ yatra for winter tourism.  A recent study states over 800 landslides triggered by the CDP in the four fragile Char Dham valleys.    

Development in the Himalayas is not a question of politics but of ecology.  And yet experts and concerned citizens are routinely labelled as environmental terrorists, anti-development and anti-national.  The eco-zone notification if followed in the Uttarkashi valley would have prevented this disaster, by disallowing illegal construction on the riverbanks and rampant tourism without evaluating carrying capacity.  In 2023, the tourism secretary of Uttarakhand even filed an affidavit in Supreme court against carrying capacity studies as hampering developmental infrastructure.    

However, even the Supreme court has ignored the contradiction inherent in allowing the CDP blanket widening to 12m in this valley.  It cannot be built without extensive forest felling and slope destabilisation.  Defence concern was the justification provided; but these three consecutive disasters reveal yet once again that such logic is self-defeating.   An Uttarakhand MP casually dismissed this tragedy to the media just hours after, as “minor difficulties expected during development.”     

We saw dead brown trout, spotted with luminescent pink spots, and silvery Himalayan trout thrown along the sand banks of the Ganga.  We are seeing the mountains around us cave in each monsoon.  We live under threat of rolling rocks and rising, roaring rivers.  The slopes under our homes are sliding.  We are buried alive in our sleep.  We live at the mercy of the next disaster.  This is the ‘new normal’.  We need a new vision of development. 

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