The Himalayas are depicted in popular iconography as the tough guys who stand tall—tallest, actually—protecting the subcontinent from invasions, both human and climatic. They command the monsoon clouds to rain over the subcontinent, bringing sustenance. There is just one little, but crucial, error in this imagery. The Himalayas are anything but tough. Vulnerable and fragile are terms which do not go with their macho looks, but they are exactly that. As the youngest mountain range in the world, they reached their present height only 10 million years ago. Compare that with the Aravallis, which are over a billion years old. The Himalayas are still in their growing phase, as tectonic plate movements push the fold mountains higher. “Every year, the Indian subcontinent goes a further 5cm under the Tibetan plate and the mountains increase by another 1.5cm in height,” says Arundeep Ahluwalia, Himalayan geologist and disaster management trainer. Great heights and steep gradients do not add up to stability. Throw in the highest rain lashings anywhere in the world, as well as avalanches in the upper regions, and there is never a quiescent moment. Then there are three tempestuous river systems originating here: the Indus, Ganges and Yangtse. This being a high seismic zone, earthquakes are a regular occurrence here. Adding to these natural activities is the huge population pressure on the hills as well as the plains that the mountains nurture. “The Himalayas need to be treated apart from any other land form,” says Sunita Narain, director-general of the Centre for Science and Environment. “There has to be a separate policy for them. Unfortunately, they've been handled with the same set of rules as anywhere else in the country.” The recent cloudburst and flash-floods were not an aberration but a regular Himalayan phenomenon. This is why the country should have been prepared for it, instead of acting like a deer caught in the headlights. In recent times, the Himalayas have witnessed a cloudburst leading to flash-floods in Ladakh and a massive earthquake in Sikkim, both of them causing huge loss of life and property. “The losses are high because we've not learnt to live around the phenomena,” says Ahluwalia. “One cannot stop development just because an area is fragile. By that yardstick, there should be no inhabitation in Japan. Nature doesn't strike without warning, especially in these times of sophisticated forecasting technology. Our repeated failure in heeding to warnings leads to disaster every time. Hurricane Sandy ravaged the US last year; it was inexorable. Yet, only around five lives were lost. There is no reason in this day and age for people to die because they were not forewarned.” Anil Joshi, founder of the Himalayan Environmental Studies and Conservation Organisation, agrees. “If there was a heavy rainfall warning issued, why was it not relayed to all who would be affected? Himalayan temple towns don't have a carrying capacity of more than 3,000 visitors; then how are they accommodating 10 times the number? Shouldn't there have been restrictions on the number of visitors at a time, especially when you know the monsoon is beginning?” Joshi said local people, especially those in remote areas, are in no way equipped to deal with natural disasters. Says Ahluwalia: “We use technology for commerce. Mobile phones receive regular messages for apartments, but never any usable warning.” A report by the Comptroller and Auditor General in April was portentous. It revealed that Uttarakhand's disaster management authority had not even met once since its inception in 2007, forget framing policies and regulations. The report said the state had no early warning system in place, and not even requisite staff at the district level. “The state government failed to ensure incorporation of disaster prevention into the development process of the state,” says the report, adding that more than Rs.44 crore was released from the Calamity Relief Fund for projects that were ineligible. The CAG also rapped the state for its failure to rehabilitate 80 villages affected in previous disasters. Uttarakhand is not the only errant state; a similar unpreparedness reflects in other states, too. The CAG has now pulled the lid off Andhra Pradesh's disaster preparedness. “We have no disaster mitigation plans,” says Gopal Krishna of ToxicsWatch Alliance. “When the minister of environment and forests reports to the cabinet committee on economic affairs, one knows what the priority is.” Joshi adds that when the GDP is the only yardstick of growth, caution and restraint will fall by the wayside. His organisation recently filed a public interest litigation in the Nainital High Court seeking the inclusion of an Ecologic Growth Measure, too, to rate development. Some years ago, the Planning Commission proposed a National Mission for Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem, which outlined in detail every aspect of Himalayan management, including sustainable urbanisation. The policy paper suggested, “municipal bylaws will be amended to prohibit construction in areas falling in hazard zones or across alignments of natural springs... the building code will be revised on the use of local materials and local architectural practices...” There were other lofty recommendations on restricting the number of pilgrims and preventing road construction near sacred places. The recommendations lie mostly unread, and the mission seems nowhere near its launch. Interview/ M. Shashidhar Reddy, vice-chairman, National Disaster Management Authority We need more precise warning capabilities By Rekha Dixit There is the allegation that the NDMA lacks teeth, that it is merely an advisory body. No. Whenever disaster strikes, the immediate responsibility of relief and rescue is with the state government. When a disaster is of national proportion, the NDMA coordinates the relief work. The National Disaster Relief Force goes out for relief and rescue. NDRF teams were pre-deployed in many instances, like during the Kosi floods. One and a half lakh people were shifted to safer ground. In coastal regions, storm warning systems are becoming effective and we see fewer fishermen stranded during cyclones. Why has such a culture not percolated across the country? We need more precise warning capabilities. The weather bureau predicted heavy rain, but it did not translate into what the state should do with the warning. Also, the Central Water Commission, whose responsibility was to anticipate floods, didn't know anything. We had a meeting, and I have urged the two departments to give proposals on developing better systems. When warnings translate into action, the damage is contained. We saw that in 2009, during the Krishna floods in Andhra Pradesh. Because we had inundation maps in advance, authorities evacuated over five and a half lakh people. The death toll was less than 100. This, when a flood of such proportions is expected only once in 10,000 years. But this does not make headlines. Disaster management is one aspect, prevention another. Shouldn't the NDMA seek a larger role in this area? The focus of disaster management shifted from relief and rescue to prevention and rehabilitation when the NDMA was formed. But authorities should heed our guidelines. Our experts have prepared guidelines for more than 17 areas, and over 75 per cent of these do not require much investment. But they go unheeded. I told a chief minister recently that we would like to discuss disaster preparedness in his state. He wrote back saying that the next time I happened to be in the state, I could brief his officials. Look at Japan. They have weekly drills in schools, offices, apartment blocks... I am told a new tenant is supposed to be given a thorough run through of the safety measures in the society. We are yet to develop that culture. Any lessons learnt from this incident? Yes. Amarnath has a system of giving a weather forecast at 4 a.m., depending on which pilgrims proceed. We should have installed a similar one at the Char Dham, too. Another aspect is crowd management. It is the biggest challenge in rescue operations in India. We've seen this during the Kumbh bridge collapse, [and] at Sabarimala, everywhere. We need better training in this aspect, as well as developing systems of regulating people.