UTTARAKHAND
The disaster is the worst to hit the state since the 2013 Kedarnath floods killed 5,700 people and highlighted the impact of the climate crisis and degradation of the fragile ecology.
It struck at 9.30am on Sunday when a glacier breach under the Nanda Devi, the country’s second-highest peak, sent a torrent of water, rock and dust down a valley into the Rishiganga river, where workers were building a dam. Visuals showed the muddy floodwaters smashing most of the plant and inundating bridges before roaring downstream into the Dhauliganga and partially damaging the National Thermal Power Corporation’s 530 MW Tapovan Vishnugrad project, roughly 8 km away.
Manish Kumar, a worker in Tapovan, was standing outside the tunnel that would later trap most of his colleagues, but sprinted up a hill when he noticed a dense plume of smoke and rumbling waters. “Those who turned around to see were washed away,” he said on Monday. The tragedy left columns of slush and debris in its wake, strewn across at least 30km downstream, where authorities had to airdrop ration packets to stranded villagers.
“There was a very loud and scary noise. I turned around to see water and debris gushing towards us. It was as if the mountains were crumbling,” said Godambari Devi, a resident of Raini village who was tending to her apple trees when the tragedy struck. Uttarakhand chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat, Union power minister RK Sinha, Union education minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’, and other senior politicians visited the site.
“The rescue work is going on at all possible speed. We will leave no stone unturned to help the needy ones with the Centre also assuring all the help needed,” said Rawat.
In Delhi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi met a delegation of state MPS and assured them that the Centre was working to strengthen infrastructure there to deal with any natural disaster in the future.
According to BJP MP Anil Baluni, a Rajya Sabha member from the state, Modi said the central government stood with Uttarkhand’s people and was monitoring ongoing rescue operations. Union home minister Amit Shah and BJP president JP Nadda were present at the meeting.
At Dehradun, Sinha said Tapovan suffered a loss of about ₹1,500 crore but ruled out the possibility of scrapping the project. “It (NTPC Tapovan project) was supposed to be commissioned by 2023 but now it is obvious that the target year would be pushed ahead. However, we have no intention to scrap the project,” said Sinha.