The August 5 flash floods, which ravaged Dharali in Uttarakhand and buried parts of the area under 15 to 20 metres of debris and left scores missing, were a disaster foretold as the authorities ignored repeated scientific warnings, violated eco-sensitive zone norms, and pushed unscientific road expansion in a geologically fragile zone, two environmental experts have said in an analysis.
Environmentalist Hemant Dhyani said the Kheer Ganga stream, barely seven kilometres long but fed by a cirque glacier, unleashed an unprecedented debris flow after being suddenly activated during heavy rain. “Three glacial-fed streams, opposite Sukhi Top, opposite Harsil, and at Dharali, swelled simultaneously between 1pm and 3pm on August 5, overwhelming defences,” he said. He said that such ferocity of short, steep Himalayan streams has been flagged multiple times. “But the warnings went unheeded,” said Dhyani, who co-authored the analysis with geologist Navin Juyal.
In the analysis titled “Dharali disaster: An Echo of Himalayan Vulnerability and human failure in Bhagirathi Eco-Sensitive Zone”, the two experts, who were part of a Supreme Court-appointed expert panel on the 2013 Kedarnath flash floods and the 2019 High-Powered Committee on Char Dham Road widening project, pointed out violations of the Bhagirathi Eco-Sensitive Zone (BESZ) notification.
The notification banned construction within 100 metres of the river’s midline and prohibited infrastructure on steep, hazard-prone slopes without detailed environmental assessment.
The analysis said that Dharali has grown virtually at the stream’s edge, with hotels and resorts built on unstable debris fan deposits, many in defiance of the state’s Flood Plain Zoning Act, the Namami Gange notification, and National Green Tribunal guidelines.
The analysis said the Char Dham road widening project, particularly the planned 10-metre uniform expansion through BESZ stretches, has compounded slope instability by cutting through old landslide debris, destabilising avalanche-prone slopes, and marking nearly 6,000 mature deodar trees for felling between Jhala and Jangla. “The result is the creation of multiple chronic landslide zones and a higher risk of landslide lake outburst floods,” the analysis said.
The experts proposed an alternative highway design to the Union road transport and highways ministry in October 2023. The plan called for a flexible and disaster-resilient approach for widening, which included a judicial road width with valley side approach to avoid slope tampering, tunnels to bypass subsiding zones, elevated corridors along river flanks, and high-elevation bridges to bypass debris flow channels. It said this approach would protect the BESZ’s ecological integrity, save thousands of trees, and reduce landslide risk.
The analysis linked the increasing frequency and intensity of disasters to climate change, black carbon deposits accelerating glacier melt, and “elevation-dependent warming” that alters snowline and treeline zones, reducing natural slope stability.
It called for urgent reforms and pointed to a dire need to strictly enforce the BESZ notification and extend similar protections to all higher Himalayan valleys from Ladakh to Arunachal Pradesh. “We have suggested that constructions be halted in floodplains and unstable slopes, that carrying capacity studies be made mandatory for all tourism zones, and that sustainable road designs be adopted in fragile terrains,” said Dhyani.
The analysis said the Himalayas are warming faster than the Indian mainland. “Unless we stop treating fragile valleys as sites for unregulated construction and poorly planned highways, disasters like Dharali will only grow in frequency and severity.”
There was no immediate official response to the analysis, which was sent to the state and central governments on Tuesday.