In this compelling article, Annapurna Nautiyal, former Vice chancellor of HNB Garhwal University, draws on her extensive experience in the Himalayan region to analyze the increasing frequency of natural calamities. The piece examines how rapid, unregulated development and human greed have exacerbated the risks posed by this fragile ecosystem, using specific historical disasters and the fictional 2025 Dharali event as cautionary examples. Nautiyal argues that a failure to learn from the past and implement sustainable practices is steering the state toward a more perilous future.
BY Annapurna Nautiyal
Highlands of the world cover roughly 22 percent of the Earth’s land surface and are populated by 13 percent of the global population. These highland ecosystems play a very crucial role in providing freshwater, conserving biodiversity, and regulating climate. These ecosystem services contribute directly to the livelihoods and income of local people and indirectly provide goods that nourish all living species, especially humans. Forest ecosystems in the Himalayan region are very important as they offer goods and services to both upstream and downstream communities.
The glaciers of these mountains are considered to be early pointers of climate change and are often called “water towers.” Mountain environments are particularly susceptible to the effects of climate change, global warming, and extreme weather events like cloudbursts, landslides, and flash floods. These events affect mountain ecosystems, water supplies, and the means of survival for mountain inhabitants. Uttarakhand, a hill state located in the Western Himalayan region of India, is no exception to this phenomenon, as the increasing frequency of calamities is rapidly converting it into a disaster state.
Uttarakhand, known as the “Abode of Gods,” is famous for its Chardhams, i.e., Badrinath, Kedarnath, Yamunotri, and Gangotri, located in the Chamoli, Rudraprayag, and Uttarkashi districts of the hill areas. It is also a water tower, as many important rivers like the Alaknanda (popularly known as the Ganga), Bhagirathi, and Yamuna originate from its glaciers. Besides this, it is also well-known for the Gurudwara of Shri Hemkund Sahib, many beautiful tourist destinations, high-altitude grasslands, the world-famous Valley of Flowers, unique biodiversity, and reserve forests, which are good resources for the sustenance of the people of this area. Tourism also provides good job and livelihood opportunities to the local inhabitants, although they are short-lived, as most people from different parts of India visit these high-altitude Chardhams from April to October.
During the winter season, these locations become inaccessible, and the Chardhams are closed due to the extremely cold climate and heavy snowfall. Given the rush of pilgrims and tourists to these panoramic destinations and holy places, in recent years, many multi-storied luxurious hotels, motels, and homestays have mushroomed alongside the rivers, rivulets, forest lands, and other high-altitude areas. Homestays with all modern amenities are also being built to support the Vibrant Village Programme, especially on the important pilgrimage routes leading to the Chardhams situated at high-altitude locations.
Rapid development in recent years, in terms of widened new all-weather highways, railways, and other infrastructure, is also being witnessed. However, due to increasing disasters and various climatic catastrophes, earthquakes, and extreme weather events, this area has always been considered very sensitive. These three types of events bring excessive misery, doom, and destruction to these areas every year, but despite this, the greed for lucrative business opportunities and the exploitation of natural resources have not changed. Construction on the hillsides and riverbeds is going on unabated. As a very sensitive area, Uttarakhand has also seen many famous environmental movements, like the Chipko Andolan, for saving its forests from being felled for commercial purposes by the local village women of Raini village under the leadership of Gaura Devi in the Chamoli district. These movements by the local people have always served as reminders not to forget the past history of disasters that took away many lives and destroyed infrastructure.
The Dharali Disaster of August 6, 2025: Man-Made Factors
In the 2021 Raini village cloudburst due to a glacial lake burst, 205 people lost their lives, and the Rishiganga Tapovan dam project was totally gutted. The only villages that survived the fury of nature were those located at a higher altitude and on the rocky side of the Rishi Ganga valley. Given the topography and habitation pattern of the hill areas, no village can be considered completely safe, but the villages located at a higher altitude from the riverbed and on a rocky surface are considered relatively safe. The latest disaster of August 6, 2025, in Uttarkashi district’s Dharali village, located on the banks of the Kheer Ganga Gaad, has again proved this to be true, as a sudden surge in the river took away the major habitation located on the river’s flood plain. Within seconds, the local rivulet filled with so much water and muck that it took away everything that came into its course/way.
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The new constructions on the riverbed have been totally washed away, and in the aftermath, there are no traces of any existing structures. The count of missing and dead and the assessment of the damage to property and infrastructure is ongoing, but the truth that rivers can emerge in their original arrangement anytime and that a cloudburst and excessive rainfall can worsen the situation has once again proved to be a perpetual truth that was totally ignored while erecting such structures. The Keer Ganga Gaad changed its course and took its original space after a break of 190 years, resulting in the recent disaster, killing many people and gutting the infrastructure as well as an ancient, renowned temple.
The number of missing and killed could increase as there were many people on the spot who had assembled to participate in a local festival. Although frequent flash floods and landslides in 2004, 2012, 2013, 2018, and 2021 had also been signaling a larger future disaster, these signals fell on deaf ears, and instead of listening to nature’s warnings, more lodges, homestays, and concrete buildings were erected in the river’s flood plain. These structures, built against the law of nature and bypassing all urban/rural settlement laws meant for disaster management and mitigation, were gutted in a few seconds, killing many people. The much-hyped, so-called automatic weather systems/doppler radars also could not help the victims, whereas the hill areas require these urgently so that timely action based on accurate warnings and predictions could save human lives.
उत्तरकाशी में ऐसा भयंकर दृश्य केदारनाथ की तरह तस्वीरें फिर वही मंज़र सामने दिखाई दे रहा 😭🙏👏
सरकार को चाहिए नदी किनारे बने घरों पर अब रोक लगनी चाहिए तभी इस तरह की आपदाओं से “क्षति कम होगी
The horrific scenes in Uttarkashi, reminiscent of Kedarnath, are resurfacing with… pic.twitter.com/P5QcmQs8fx— Pyara Hindustan (@_PyaraHindustan) August 5, 2025
Lessons Which Are Never Learned
This disaster is again a warning against playing with the mountainous regions’ ecology. As the Western Himalayas are considered to be a fragile region due to their geographical and geological instability, putting extra weight on them through heavy concrete multi-storied buildings, hotels, resorts, and overcrowding beyond any place’s carrying capacity, as well as weighty construction on the muddy deposits on the highly sensitive river flood plain, is very surprising. We have the example of the 2013 Kedarnath flood, which killed over 6,000 people and cleaned out the huge infrastructures built on the river flood plain. Many pilgrim stops, like Rambara, lost their existence. The huts of Garhwal Mandal Vikas Nigam at Chandrapuri, en route to Kedarnath Shrine, were also washed away by this flood. The infrastructure of the SSB at Srinagar town was also hugely damaged.
But we have not learned any lesson from the Kedarnath disaster, and even in the university town of Garhwal University, huge infrastructure like hostels and residences have been erected on the muck deposits on the riverbed of the Alaknanda River. In one of the famous Prayags of the Garhwal Hills, Devprayag, the Central Sanskrit University’s huge campus has been developed on a steep hill by cutting and drilling the rocks, which are very fragile. Although a proper assessment must have been conducted about the sustainability of such infrastructures before construction, mountain topography is such that it cannot be considered reliable. These areas are unstable, highly risky, and fragile, and rivers can breach their course at any time.
Similarly, in Kaudiyala, located on the way to Srinagar, huge building structures are being erected on steep slopes by heavy cutting, drilling, and use of concrete. This raises a pertinent question: despite various authentic reports by scientists, geologists, and environmentalists against such constructions and the exploitation of resources, who provides clearance for such constructions? Who sanctions the mining of minerals from riverbeds by using heavy machinery, thus damaging their natural flow and later bringing misery?
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Why is the issue of carrying capacity of any area and sustainability never considered important, and why isn’t the number of pilgrims and tourists who can visit these sites fixed according to the carrying capacity? Has our greed for the exploitation of natural resources and minting wealth through it overpowered all lessons and future indicators that we are ignoring? The serious issue of land subsidence at Joshimath on the way to Badrinath Shrine is still unresolved, as many houses and buildings face the threat of total collapse. It is also surprising that despite the enormous risk, people are not willing to abandon their sinking houses due to attachment issues.
Conclusion
There is no doubt that tourism is the most lucrative source of employment and income for local people, but why is the model of sustainable and eco-sensitive tourism always ignored? Despite numerous debates on TV channels and warnings through reports and studies, why is the number of rafting boats floating with tourists in almost all the rivers, high-rise buildings, tourists, pilgrims, and Kanwars (who throng the area in crores during the rainy season to worship Neelkanth Mahadev) never fixed to save the precious human lives and other resources from the fury and retaliation of nature? Is the distribution of compensation after a disaster/tragedy the only answer to mitigate the pain, or is the urgent implementation of existing stringent rules a better course? Why do the disaster management authorities fail to take prompt action to demolish all such structures located or being built in dangerous areas or on hillsides? In this age of high technology, why do we always fail to perform, and what causes such failures? If all of us, particularly the authorities, politicians, rule makers, and breakers, decide to save humanity from the vengeance of nature, who will stop us? These questions are important and need answers from all segments of society and polity. Since human memory is always very short and tends to easily forget past lessons, in the absence of awareness and quick action, we will continue to witness the destruction and loss induced by such natural and man-made disasters if we fail to take serious measures now.
Major Disasters in Uttarakhand’s History
Uttarakhand has faced some of India’s worst natural calamities:
- 1880 Nainital-Almora Landslide & Flood – 151 killed.
- 1991 Uttarkashi Earthquake (6.6) – 750 killed.
- 1998 Pithoragarh (Malpa) Landslide – 261 killed.
- 2003 Uttarkashi (Varunavart) Cloudburst & Landslide – 207 killed, huge property loss.
- 2012 Rudraprayag (Ukhimath) Landslide – 75 killed.
- 2013 Kedarnath Flood & Landslide – Over 6,000 killed, massive infrastructure destruction from Kedarnath to Srinagar, with impacts felt as far as Rishikesh and Haridwar.
- 1970 Alaknanda Floods – Triggered by a massive landslide at the headwaters, causing widespread destruction along the Alaknanda river valley.
- 1998 Okhimath Landslides – Multiple slides after heavy rain killed more than 100 people and destroyed villages.
- 2004 Chamoli Floods – Glacial melt and cloudbursts caused flash floods, killing dozens and damaging roads, bridges, and homes.
- 2009 Pitthoragarh Landslide – Heavy monsoon rains led to a series of slides killing at least 40 people.
- 2021 Chamoli Glacier Burst (Rishi Ganga Disaster) – A breaking glacier triggered flash floods in Rishiganga and Dhauliganga rivers, killing over 200 people and destroying two hydropower projects.
- 2023 Joshimath Land Subsidence – Gradual sinking of the ground damaged hundreds of homes and forced large-scale evacuations.
(Annapurna Nautiyal is Former Vice Chancellor, HNB Garhwal University, Srinagar, Garhwal, Uttarakhand)
