Chamoli: Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami will hold a high-level meeting in Dehradun on Friday in the wake of the land subsidence at Joshimath in Chamoli district. Apart from the officials of the disaster, irrigation, home department, Commissioner Garhwal Mandal and District Magistrate Chamoli will also participate in the meeting.
The Chamoli district administration on Thursday asked Hindustan Construction Company Limited (HCC) and National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) to be prepared to shelter the affected families migrating from Uttarakhand's Joshimath due to land subsidence. HCC and NTPC each have been directed to build 2,000 prefabricated houses, a shelter for families migrating from Joshimath.
Meanwhile, the Uttarakhand government formed a team of scientists to find out the reason behind the occurrence of land subsidence in Joshimath and the resultant damage to the houses. According to an official statement, engineers from the Geological Survey of India, Wadia Institute and IIT Roorkee have been included in the team formed on the instructions of Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami.
On Thursday, a team of experts, including officials from the administration and State Disaster Management, surveyed the areas, which were affected by the land subsidence. Garhwal Commissioner Sushil Kumar and Disaster Management Secretary Ranjit Kumar Sinha visited the affected areas in the Chamoli district.
Meanwhile, the operation of the Joshimath-Auli ropeway has stopped till further orders. The land subsidence in Uttarakhand's Joshimath was caused by human activities and nature, said Dr Satyendra Mittal, professor of the Civil Engineering Department, Roorkee IIT on Thursday. Speaking on the continuous landslides in Joshimath of Chamoli district of Uttarakhand, Dr Mittal said, "There can be mainly two reasons for the landslide happening in Uttarakhand. One is man-made and the other is the nature-born reason. When construction works start happening in an unplanned way, then it is called man-made reason."
"There is an under-construction activity in the affected area, the tunnel work is going on and its lining is not completed yet. So in this situation, water, inside the tunnel, seeping out from any point of the tunnel is not surprising," he said. "The water which is seeping out from some unknown place of the tunnel must be getting accumulated somewhere and when that water gets accumulated beyond the land's capacity, it increases hydrostatic pressure, whose aftermath is land subsidence," Dr Mittal added.
The BJP state unit has also formed a 14-member committee, under the coordination of the party's state general secretary Aditya Kothari to assess the land subsidence incident and the damages being reported. Meanwhile, protests continued in Joshimath on Thursday as the government began evacuating families staying in houses at risk after developing cracks. The town observed a bandh to protest against administrative indifference to the plight of residents and the "NTPC projects, which have led to its gradual sinking."
The party's state media in-charge Manveer Singh Chauhan said the committee was constituted on the instructions of state president Mahendra Prasad Bhatt and it will visit the site on January 6 and hold talks with local residents, businessmen and public representatives, adding that it will submit its report to the state leadership.
Cracks have reportedly developed in as many as 561 houses in Joshimath as a result of continued land subsidence in the town, stated the District Disaster Management Department. Following the appearance of cracks in the houses, a total of 66 families are reported to have migrated from Joshimath as of now.
"Now the process of increasing cracks in Singhdhar and Marwadi has started. Badrinath NH near Singhdhar Jain locality and JP Company Gate in Marwadi, near the forest department check post, is continuously cracking. This crack is increasing every hour which is worrying," said Joshimath Municipal Chairman Shailendra Pawar.
"Cracks are also increasing on all the main roads of Sunil Ward due to which people are facing a lot of difficulty in walking," said Shalendar Panwar. CM Dhami would be visiting Joshimath soon to take stock of the situation and initiate necessary actions. The statement comes in the backdrop of reports of huge cracks that have appeared in the houses of the area due to land subsidence, which is known as the vertical sinking of land in an area.
"I will be visiting Joshimath in a few days and initiate steps to handle the situation. All the reports will be monitored and all the required steps will be taken. I have had a word with the Municipal Corporation chairman Shailendra Pawar to monitor the condition in the district," said CM Pushkar Singh Dhami told the media. Joshimath Municipal Chairman Shailendra Pawar said huge cracks appeared in the houses due to leakage of water from inside the ground in the Marwadi ward. (With Agency Inputs)
