Climate disasters expose perils of overtourism in the hills of India

Some Indian states, other hilly regions have announced plans for sustainable tourism

- Debarshi Dasgupta

NEW DELHI - It took less than a minute for flash floods to wash away an entire section of a village in the Indian Himalayan state of Uttarakhand on Aug 5, as people tried in vain to flee.

Among the establishments swept away by the deluge in Dharali were shops and hotels that had sprung up in the last decade to cater to the swarms of tourists and Hindu pilgrims headed for destinations farther up in the hills.

But these structures built on the banks of the Bhagirathi river, one of the key headstreams of the Ganges river, should not have been there in the first place.

Dharali is situated in the Bhagirathi Eco-Sensitive Zone, a 4,157 sq km expanse established in 2012, to protect the ecology and watershed of the Ganges near its origin.

Construction activity is banned on the banks for at least 100m from the middle of the river, but it has gone on unchecked for years, which contributed to the scale of devastation from the flash floods.

At least four people in Dharali died, while another 68 are still missing.

This preventable loss of human lives has again renewed the focus on overtourism in India's hill regions and the recurring toll it exacts, especially now that adverse weather events linked to climate change, such as cloudbursts and glacial lake outburst floods, are on the rise in the Himalayas.

On Aug 14, a cloudburst in the Kishtwar district of India-administered Jammu and Kashmir caused the deaths of at least 67 people, many of them pilgrims. Heavy rain has killed hundreds this monsoon season, as landslides and flash floods wreaked havoc across the Himalayas.

Faced with these threats, several Indian states and other hilly regions have announced initiatives to spur sustainable tourism.

Sikkim, a hilly state in India's north-east, is encouraging "slow tourism", aimed at luring travellers away from over-visited urban centres to scenic villages.