Written by Aaitijhya Goswami
Edited by Hanna Karasinka & Emil Koch
The sky was darkened and overcast with clouds, as the rain fell in tons and avalanches on the holy shrine and one of the most visited pilgrimage sites in India. On 13 June 2013, the holy Hindu shrine situated at the heart of the towering Himalayan mountains experienced one of the most devastating natural calamities in history. Moments later, the bustling town, which was usually packed with pilgrims and tourists, traveled up the exhausting 16 km hike and braved the bitter cold, just to get a glimpse and make their prayers heard at the holy shrine. The periphery of which would be filled with hawkers selling various garlands and religious artifacts and mementos, photographers would often flock to the temple premises to snap away at the smiling and joyous faces of the delighted devotees. But all of this was to change on that fateful morning when the dam built on the lake at the hill above the town, from where the river flowed down, suddenly burst under the extreme water pressure accumulated due to the sudden cloudburst. The smiling faces soon turned tear-strained and filled with error as in no time, the water came relentlessly rumbling down onto the bustling town. The river flowing through the mountains suddenly bulged to ten times its usual capacity, destroying everything in its path and engulfing all signs of life, bridges, tourist hotels, shops, trees and hill slopes, and human corpses. All were washed away, not a single trace of them to be found again, but miraculously enough, the temple and shrine survived, as a large stone had fallen and diverted the rapid water flow and prevented any damage to the building.
From 16 June 2013 a well-marked cyclonic circulation developed around a low-pressure area over the Bay of Bengal, moving westwards, rapidly intensified due to moisture supplied from both the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea, combining with intense western disturbances from the north, thus causing the Indian state of Uttarakhand and adjoining areas to receive heavy rainfall, leading to 375% of the benchmark rainfall during a normal monsoon. This caused the melting of the Chorabari Glacier at the height of 3800 meters and the cresting of the Mandakini River, which led to heavy floods in Govindghat, Kedar Dome, Rudraprayag district, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Western Nepal, and acute rainfall in other nearby regions of Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and some parts of Tibet.
The upper Himalayan territories of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand are full of forests and snow-covered mountains and thus remain relatively inaccessible. They are home to several major and historic Hindu and Sikh pilgrimage sites besides several tourist spots and trekking trails. Heavy rainfall for four consecutive days as well as melting snow aggravated the floods. Warnings by the India Meteorological Department predicting heavy rains were not given wide publicity beforehand, causing thousands of people to be caught unaware, resulting in huge loss of life and property.
Landslides, due to the floods, damaged several houses and structures, killing those who were trapped. The heavy rains resulted in large flash floods and massive landslides. Entire villages and settlements such as Gaurikund and the market town of Ram Bada, a transition point to Kedarnath, had been obliterated, while the market town of Sonprayag suffered heavy damage and loss of lives. Pilgrimage centers in the region, including Gangotri, Yamunotri, Kedarnath and Badrinath, the hallowed Hindu Chardham (four sites) pilgrimage centers, are usually visited by thousands of devotees, especially after the month of July onwards. Over 70,000 people were stuck in various regions because of damaged or blocked roads. People in other important locations like the Valley of Flowers, Roopkund, and the Sikh pilgrimage center Hemkund were stranded for more than three days. National Highway 7 (Old National Highway 58), an important artery connecting the region was also washed away near Jyotirmath and in many other places. Because summers have more tourists, the number of people impacted was substantial. For more than three days, stranded pilgrims and tourists were without rations or survived on little food. The roads were seriously damaged at more than 450 places, resulting in huge traffic jams, and the floods caused many cars and other vehicles to be washed away. On 18 June, more than 12,000 pilgrims were stranded at Badrinath, the popular pilgrimage center located on the banks of the Alaknanda River. Rescuers at the Hindu pilgrimage town of Haridwar on the river Ganga recovered the bodies of 40 victims washed down by the flooded rivers as of 21 June 2013. Bodies of people washed away in Uttarakhand were found in distant places like Bijnor, Allahabad, and Bulandshahr in Uttar Pradesh. Searching for bodies who died during the extreme natural fury of June in Kedar Valley continued for several months and even as late as September 2013, about 556 bodies were found out of which 166 bodies were found in a highly decomposed state during the fourth round of search operations.
A study by Utah State University analyzed the natural and anthropogenic influences on the climate anomalies using simulations and found that (a) northern India has experienced increasingly large rainfall in June since the late 1980s, (b) the increase in rainfall appears to be associated with a tendency in the upper troposphere towards amplified short waves, and (c) the phasing of such amplified short waves is tied to increased loading of greenhouse gases and aerosols. In addition, a regional modeling diagnosis attributed 60–90 % of rainfall amounts in the June 2013 event to post-1980 climate trends.
Unprecedented destruction of the rainfall witnessed in Uttarakhand state was also attributed, by environmentalists, to unscientific developmental activities undertaken in recent decades contributing to a high level of loss of property and lives. Roads constructed in a haphazard style, new resorts and hotels built on fragile rivers and more than 70 hydroelectric projects in the watersheds of the state led to a "disaster waiting to happen" as termed by certain environmentalists. The environmental experts reported that the tunnels built and blasts undertaken for the 70 hydroelectric projects contributed to the ecological imbalance in the state, with flows of river water restricted and the streamside development activity contributing to a higher number of landslides and more flooding.
If only we had been a little precautious about the underlying dangers that these unplanned projects were nurturing, countless lives could be saved. Hopefully, this disaster serves as a wake-up call to the dangers that greenhouse gas emissions plague our future generations with and how an overlooked ecological problem causes unimaginable destruction if given time to grow.
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References:
[1] Kumar, S. (2013, July 15). 5 748 feared dead after India floods. IOL. Retrieved September 9, 2023, from http://www.iol.co.za/news/world/5-748-feared-dead-after-india-floods-1.1546813#.UePfZdIVNlc;
[2] Santoshi, N. (2023, July 16). Ten years of Kedarnath tragedy: Lessons not learnt and challenges ahead. Hindustan Times. https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/lessons-from-kedarnath-sustainable-development-needed-to-prevent-disasters-in-vulnerable-himalayan-state-101689532919873.html; (Accessed on 09/09/2023)
[3] Santoshi, N. (2023b, July 16). Ten years of Kedarnath tragedy: Lessons not learnt and challenges ahead. Hindustan Times. https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/lessons-from-kedarnath-sustainable-development-needed-to-prevent-disasters-in-vulnerable-himalayan-state-101689532919873.html; (Accessed on 09/09/2023)
[4] Desk, F. W., & Desk, F. W. (2022, June 15). 2013 Kedarnath flood disaster: How a cloudburst killed 6,000 people 9 years ago. Free Press Journal. https://www.freepressjournal.in/india/2013-kedarnath-flood-disaster-how-a-cloudburst-killed-6000-people-9-years-ago; (Accessed on 09/09/2023)
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