“The government has sealed our hotel. We have faced heavy losses worth several crores. I am not in a position to talk more,” said Thakur Singh Rana, handing over the phone to his son. His voice was still trembling at the unexpected turn of events. Rana owns Hotel Malari Inn in Joshimath. The government has banned the hotel’s operations along with Hotel Mount View under the Disaster Management Act 2005.
Thakur Singh Rana’s son Kamlesh Rana says most people in the region knew how vulnerable the area was. “Everybody knew how dangerous the situation was. But all chose to do nothing about it. We received a notice from the government on 27 December, which said that we cannot run our operations, and immediately we stopped our operations.”
The Joshimath area of Uttarakhand has been declared disaster-prone because of the rising cases of land subsidence. Over 600 buildings have developed cracks in Joshimath so far. However, experts have told The Probe that successive governments should have declared Joshimath a ‘sinking zone’ decades ago.
Professor Banerjee adds that the Geological Survey of India also had carried out its own investigation related to the vulnerability of the region. “Many years ago, the Geological Survey of India carried out an investigation. Even that report speaks about how unstable this region is. Even if the government did not take the scientists or academicians seriously, at least it should have taken note of the Geological Survey of India’s report.”
Shrikant Dimri, another local hotelier in the region whose Hotel Mount View is on the verge of collapse, says he has seen large-scale construction activities in the town as far back as 2007, resulting in building cracks. “My Hotel Mount View is completely damaged, and I have shut the operations from December 27 itself. My hotel had 30 rooms. You can imagine the kind of loss people like us are bearing because of this. From 20 December onwards the problem started reaching its peak. But this is not an issue that just started this year. This has been going on for many years now. Local people have been raising their voices against these concerns for a long time, but literally, nothing has been done about it. As far as I can remember, there were construction works in the region from 2007 itself, which had resulted in cracks in many buildings in the vicinity.”
“On December 2, we wrote a letter to the Chief Minister regarding all the issues, but there was absolutely no response from the CM or his office. We have met many officials in the process. We didn’t get a positive response from any, and it was too late when the Secretary of Disaster Management finally responded. The situation in Joshimath is very grim now. We are not happy with the way the government has responded to this crisis, and therefore we have decided to continue with our protests,” asserts Sati.
“The town has been developed over debris. This region is tectonically active and falls under seismic zone 5. This town was built at a height of 6000 feet. There are multiple structures on the slopes, which are unstable zones. In this region, there are many rivers that flow down towards Joshimath, which has caused a lot of erosion. Joshimath has been a gateway to the Himalayas. Most importantly, there are multiple developmental and construction activities taking place in the area. The load of the structures have exceeded the strength the foundational rocks can bear. The 2021 heavy rains and flash floods have also added to the burden,” notes Dr Kalachand Sain, a geo-scientist and Director at the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology from Dehradun.