BANGALORE: A 400-year-old temple survived the Himalayan tsunami but a 21st century building did not. That's how Prof J Srinivasan, head of Divecha Centre for Climate Change at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), sums up the Uttarakhand tragedy.
As someone who's been visiting this tough terrain since 1975, he should know. "The number of pilgrims visiting these holy places have increased more than 10-fold in the past 30 years."
Srinivasan and the others were trapped in Maletha between June 16 and 18, 2013, as landslides blocked the Rishikesh-Badrinath national highway. They had to escape from the valley by taking smaller roads out of the valley and return via Pauri and Kotdwar to Dehradun on June 19. "We were trapped in our car for one full night and it was raining heavily with frequent landslides. The forecast by the meteorological department on June 14 was accurate and could have been used to reduce the heavy loss of human life," he told TOI on Tuesday.
According to Srinivasan, who will now study the catastrophe in detail, the tragic events near Kedarnath temple are still a mystery. "We need more analysis to understand what caused the sudden mudslide that destroyed the valley. Nearly 25 million pilgrims visit these places. The roads are sandwiched between steep hillsides and rivers. People stay at hotels and other places constructed on river banks; and these are not safe. Despite such heavy rain and mudslides, the Kedarnath temple remained intact while structures built in the 21st century collapsed. The temple was buried in ice 400 years ago and survived. This is a tribute to those who built the temple 14{+t}{+h} century when there were no engineering colleges," he said.
Recalling the three days he, his wife and daughter spent in a village 'Maletha', about 100km from Rishikesh, Srinivasan said he saw 20 landslides. "Our taxi along with the others, was moving from Rishikesh to Devaprayag on June 16. There were traffic jams in many places on account on landslides. Boulders came crashing down the mountain sides regularly and one of them fell on a car, injuring the driver. Later, we were told that more serious incidents had happened in other places," he said.
UNSTABLE HIMALAYAS
The outer Himalayas, according to Srinivasan, are essentially mountains of rubble created by the river Ganga, and hence very unstable during the rainy season. At Devaprayag, rivers Alaknanda and Bhagirathi normally look blue or green, but on June 16, they were both brown, clearly indicating that heavy rain was washing down the soil.
