Kathmandu: Greater
cooperation is necessary to protect the fragile ecology of the
Himalayas, the world’s youngest mountains facing unprecedented human
encroachment, concluded the team of Nepali and Indian journalists and
researchers that gathered in Kathmandu on Monday to assess the disaster
brought by the floods last month. The programme, titled "Ganga-Mahakali
catchment disaster" was organised by the Nainital-based People’s
Association for Himalaya Area Research (Pahar) and the Kathmandu-based
Himal Southasian magazine.
Speaking at the
programme Dr. Shekhar Pathak, the founder of Pahar and noted historian
said the rivers in Uttarkhand and the Himalayan region were "angry" from
the last 100 years of human encroachment. The tragedy was far greater
than the media suggested and was not limited to Uttarakhand. It spanned
eastern Himanchal Pradesh and western Nepal, he said.
Mr.
Pathak accused the Chief Minister of Uttarakhand of "hiding very many
things, including the number of dead and missing" and "not even bringing
up the floods with his colleagues until four days after the devastation
began on the evening of June 16".
The exact death toll in Uttarakhand is unknown but is estimated to be around 10,000.
It
is suspected that a large proportion of the 10,000-15,0000 labourers
who carry pilgrims to remote temples, perished. Many of the labourers
were youth from western Nepal.
Mr. Pathak claimed
that all the hydro projects in Uttarakhand collapsed and the dams –
about two dozen of them – had been swept away by the floods. He vented
particular ire at the JP Power Project on the Bishnuganga river for
destroying the ecology of the area with the use of thousands of tonnes
of dynamite to blast tunnels and roads through the Himalayas.
"We have example after example of human encroachment at the Himalayas. But the ones who died were not responsible."
Dharchula-Darchula
Several
Nepali participants noted the differences in the destruction caused by
the Mahakali river on the Nepal-India border. On the Indian side, the
town of Dharchula suffered no losses because of the protection from
embankments and newly-constructed spurs, but the one Nepali side, the
river tore the town of Darchula into pieces.
Nepali
commentators, including the district chief of Darchula, accused the
administrators of the Dhauliganga hydro project in India of releasing
the floodgates without warning. The district chief unsuccessfully tried
to contact the district magistrate on the Indian side for two days.
The Indian embassy in Kathmandu denies that the Dhauliganga dam caused the floods in Darchula.
Speaking
at the event, journalist Girish Giri recounted his travel to the
confluence of the Mahakali and Dhauliganga river. "The locals on the
Indian side, too, believe that the floods were caused by the Dhauliganga
dam," he said.
The full impact of floods in Nepal
will not be known this month, if ever. The Red Cross estimates that 59
have died, 29 injured and 2,079 families (approximately 12,500 people)
have been displaced in dozens of Nepal districts since May by floods in
the Mahakali and the Karnali river systems.With the monsoon still
hanging over the country, there are fears that two other river systems,
the Gandaki and the Koshi, could unleash more floods in the central and
eastern parts of the country.