Sir — This refers to the editorial, “Uttarakhand tragedy” (June 24). Nature’s fury and the tragedy in its wake, are indeed unprecedented.
You have rightly concluded that the ghastly calamity was brought about because we have abused nature by indiscriminately felling trees, launching large-scale construction activities, all in the name of development.
We forget that this ‘development’ comes at a heavy cost, as the devastation in Uttarakhand has shown. What we need is proper planning and monitoring of every development activity in accordance with the rules and regulations, if we wish to avoid similar catastrophes in future.