Rain fury or nature’s revenge?

Unprecedented heavy rainfall has wreaked havoc in several states across the country. Reports of cloudbursts, landslides and flooding of human habitations have been coming in with sickening regularity during July and August. Himalayan states like Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir have suffered the worst with cloudbursts claiming lives, demolishing homes, destroying crops and displacing people on large swathes of land.

Himachal Pradesh witnessed its wettest August in 76 years with the state receiving 68 per cent of excess rainfall leading to 320 death, closure of over 200 roads for traf fic and disruption of water and power supply in towns and villages. The state government has declared itself as disaster-hit. Punjab too is experiencing the worst floods in nearly 40 years with all 23 districts reporting displacement of people due to deluge.

The state received 254 mm of rain during August, which was not only 74 per cent in excess of normal, but also the highest the state has witnessed in the last 25 years. The swollen Beas, Sutlej, Ravi and Ghaggar rivers have submerged paddy crops over 1.75 lakh acres. Floods have affected 1,650 village.

The state, now a major paddy-grower, is likely to suffer a massive fall in production with the mounting burden of debt for farmers. Jammu and Kashmir has reported massive landslides in Reasi and Kishtwar with dozen of lives lost. Torrential rains have triggered flash floods and house collapses even as 30 pilgrims lost their lives due to the cloudburst on the pilgrim route of Vaishnodevi.

Uttarakhand has suffered the worst with massive chunks of hills coming down blocking traffic to the pilgrim towns. The state recorded 1,265 mm of rain against a nor mal of 1,009 mm with Bageshwar reporting an excess of 250 per cent. The state has sought Rs. 5,700 crore by way of rain relief from the Centre.

While 80 deaths have been reported, around 4,000 concrete houses have been damaged due to excessive precipitation and land submer gence. At one stage, nearly 60,000 pilgrims were reported stranded on the highways snaking through the hills. While some of the disasters could be attributed to excessive and relentless rains during this monsoon, much stems from a deadly mix of climate change, deforestation, chaotic and unplanned urbanisation and systemic governance failure.

Expansion of highway network over the hills and unabated exploitation of hydropower capacity of the rivers descending down the hills has rendered them vulnerable to cloudbursts when water rushing downstream washes away towns and villages over the slopes which are already destabilised due to deforestation.

Environmentalists say there is a direct co-relation between tourism, increased traffic and higher incidence of landslides. By the same token, the flow of rivers like Ganga, Yamuna and Alaknanda has been tweaked and twisted through diversion to tunnels or reservoirs to such an extent that 80% cent of the flow routes have been modified.

Highways have brought in land-use change. Human settlements stand on land which used to be flood-plaines earlier. Highways are now lined by hotels, resorts and home stays. The Central Electricity Authority and the Uttara khand power department have drawn plans for 70 hydropower projects on the tributaries of the Ganga.

The damage and devastation is the cumulative consequence of neglecting the ecological factors and ignoring the car rying capacity of the hills. What one needs to understand is that it is not rivers that breach the banks, it is nature’s re venge for human greed which conveniently camouflages itself under the guise of “ development”.