Apart from earthquakes, landslides, cloudbursts, flash floods, avalanches and meteorological characteristics and geo-tectonic set- up of the region that make Uttarakhand vulnerable to natural disasters, structural vulnerability is not less worrisome for the mountainous state.
Though the State Government claims to be prepared to take on any disaster- like situation head on, little seems to have been done to ensure compliance of disaster safety norms in all public buildings and residential complexes in Uttarakhand.
According to the Vulnerability Atlas of India, as the State Disaster Management Authority (SDMA) mentioned in its report, around 56 percent houses in Uttarakhand are made of mud, un-burnt bricks and stone walls.
This is enough to highlight structural vulnerability of the built environment, particularly to seismic tremors to which the state is highly vulnerable, as the report suggests.
The fact of the matter is that buildings are still traditionally constructed in villages in remote parts of the Himalayan state using locally available stone, mud and timber. Although with the passage of time, people have also started constructing houses with brick, cement and other modern building materials available yet proper care is not being taken to make these human habitations natural disaster proof.
To compound the woes for the state, Uttarakhand seems to be lagging far behind many other states in terms of strengthening its early weather warning system.
The State Government has not yet been able to install a Doppler Radar, an early weather warning system, whose necessity was felt the most in the post-natural calamity Uttarakhand last year.
A year having passed since the catastrophe struck, the State Government has been able to identify some pieces of land for installing Doppler Radar.
“We have now been able to find a piece of land for setting up the early weather warning system. But procurement and installation of the said early weather warning system have to be done by the Meteorological Department, Government of India,” said an official of the Disaster Mitigation and Minimisation Centre (DMMC), Uttarakhand.
However, if everything goes as per plan the Doppler Radar would be installed only in the next financial year, as the officials concerned hope.
As per the state disaster management plan report, the state falls in either Zone IV or Zone V of Earthquake Zonation Map of India. Pithoragarh, Bageshwar, Chamoli and Rudraprayag districts together with some areas of Almora, Champawat, Tehri, Uttarkashi and Pauri districts fall in Zone V while Udham Singh Nagar, Nainital, Haridwar and Dehradun districts fall fully in Zone IV.