Nobody expected that the impact of climate change would happen in such a sudden disaster. These disasters are happening in a cycle, sometime affecting the eastern Himalayas sometimes, western Himalayas and northern Himalayas.
People of Hills are now afraid of such disasters and are migrating from hills not for their livelihood but scared of such natural disasters. There have been mixed thoughts being shared about the actual reason for such disasters and cloudburst. Some say it is natural cycle and some say it is because of the construction of unscientific roads, bridges and power plants etc. There is a need to revisit our overall strategies so that we do not invite more danger for the common man said Harish Rawat, Union Minister for Water resources while addressing in a meet on “lessons from the 2013 Uttarakhand Disaster” in Dehradun on Saturday. It is a step towards fact finding to resurrect Uttarakhand and its economy post calamity.
The State has recently faced a humongous natural calamity that took away lives of thousands of human beings and animals, property worth several thousand crores was destroyed, life in this beautiful hilly State came to an absolute standstill, so to find out answers to many questions that were floating and taking shapes of rumors and hearsay, “The various successful models of effective disaster management, adopted by other States should be considered and an absolutely scientific path has to be treaded, if we are honest in our efforts to reconstruct Uttrakhand “ said Mr. B.G. Vergese, senior journalist.
“There are three phases of disaster i.e. Pre disaster phase- prevention and preparation, Disaster & Post disaster-rescue operation, however we generally talk about post disaster i.e. rescue operation. One of the lessons learnt should be to look at the pre disaster and prepare — we must follow first phase at the right time. Third phase — rescue, rehabilitation and reconstruction, priority should be given to the type of rehabilitation and reconstruction and the lessons should be taken that the construction should not be made on seismic zone. The third lessons should be that there should be some regulations in allowing people coming for pilgrimage, children should not be taken to such areas.
The Disaster Management Act, 2005 should actually be followed. “ said Mr. S.S. Pangtey, Ex-IAS during the first session of the consultation. Dr. RD Singh, enlightened the gathering on the subject of cloud burst and how it happens, flash flood management, Glacial lake Outburst Flood (GlOF), GlOF Risk Mapping, landslipes. He pointed out that with advance radar system and computers predicting cloudburst is possible. If work is done with a scientific point of view, we will be able to manage much better with lesser causalities.
Avdhash Kaushal, Chairperson, RlEK raised a concern that, “was this calamity a natural calamity or it was a man made calamityIJ Did this happen due to uplifting the Dhari Devi idol to safer placeIJ For the frequent cloud bursts and floods in Uttarakhand, are the hydro power projects responsibleIJ Can floods be forewarned and damage be minimizedIJ Tourism and Hydel power production is the backbone of economy of the mountain state of Uttarakhand, post calamity, what steps can be taken to resurrect themIJ What are the ways to improve upon the HDI of UttarakhandIJ”
The consultation has been attended by Dr. RD Singh, Director, National Institute of Hydrology; Padmashri Dr (Prof) AN Purohit; Former Vice-Chancellor of HNB Garhwal University; Satish C Sharma, President and CEO- Hydro, Jindal Power ltd.; Dr. PC Nawani, President (Consultant), Jindal Power ltd,; GP Patel, MD Uttarakhand Jal Vidydut Nigam (UJVNl), Dehradun; Prashant Tandon, Global Environment organization, Greenpeace; Hari Krishna Nibanupudi, ICIMOD, Nepal; Dr. Indrajit Pal, Associate Professor, Centre for Disaster Management, lBSNAA, Mussoorie; Sarojini Kaintura, Uttarakhand State Mahila congress chief and many more eminent nature scientist, environmentalist, geologists, hydrologists, journalists, activist, scholars, other stakeholders along with “builders of Modern Temples”.