Warnings Ignored

Almost identical statements, a decade apart, by Chief Ministers of two different political parties, reveal the crux of the problem — a flawed development model, imagined and implemented for Uttarakhand. Successive Governments have tried to stimulate economic activity through tourism and massive infrastructure projects. Such misplaced zeal for development has made the Government brush aside environmental concerns.

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Twelve years ago, on 16 June 2013, a cloudburst caused devastating floods and landslides in Uttarakhand, resulting in the death of more than 6,000 people by government estimates, and up to 20,000 persons, by private estimates. Overflowing rivers destroyed most bridges and roads along the Char Dham Yatra Marg, leaving more than 3 lakh pilgrims stranded. The usual angels of mercy; the Army, Air Force and paramilitary forces, evacuated more than 110,000 people from the flood-ravaged area.

In a small-scale replay of the 2013 tragedy, on 5 August 2025, a cloudburst caused the Kheer Ganga River to overflow, inundating Dharali village and surrounding areas. Viral videos of the disaster show men, houses, shops, and other structures being swept away in a raging torrent. With many still missing, the final toll is yet to be ascertained. Rescue efforts were gravely hampered by roads that had been washed away, or were blocked by boulders. Connectivity and electricity supply disappeared because mobile towers and electric poles had been washed away. The exact cause of the flood is still being assessed; geologists are divided on whether the flood was triggered by a cloudburst, heavy rains or a glacier lake overflow. Be that as it may, experts are almost unanimous that it was a tragedy waiting to happen. Apparently, hotels, homes, and markets had been built in the floodplains, and historic channels of Kheer Ganga; construction in the old river bed had continued unabated, even after the 2013 floods reactivated the river's old course.

Only an RCC wall was built to confine Kheer Ganga's flow to its new course; debris and boulders accompanying flood waters demolished the RCC wall, and washed away all structures built on the river bed, in the process burying a half a kilometre-wide stretch of land under mounds of debris and sludge, up to fifty-feet high.