Uttarakhand Disaster
What exactly triggered it?
Who is responsible? Mankind or Mother Nature? Let's look into the natural causes.
- From the 14th of June until the 17th, Uttarakhand received heavy rainfall. It was above the benchmark.
- A cloudburst centered Uttarakhand which caused devastating floods and landslides.
- Due to continuous rain, the Chorabari Glacier melted which caused the flooding of the Mandakani river. This caused very heavy floods.
What about the man-made causes?
- Rapid growth of tourism.
- Unchecked increase of roads, hotels, shops etc. in ecologically fragile areas.
- Unplanned construction.
- Rapid growth of hydroelectricity dams which disrupted water balances.
- More than 200 mining, etc. projects were running in about 15 river valleys in Uttarakhand. Several rivers were being diverted through tunnels for these projects leading to major disasters in the state.
- Deforestation caused frequent landslides.