At Bengwadi village, 8 kilometres away from Pauri township in Pauri Garhwal district a cloud burst incident occured this morning at 3.00 AM resulting in damage to a house and Gaushala completely filled with silt, muck and heavy stones, though the domestic animals viz three cows were rescued safely.
In Uttarakhand, Garhwal and Kumaon divisions natural disasters especially the cloud burst incidentd h resulting in heavy flash floods washing several houses n loss of lives have become very common in view of environmental n ecological imbalance due to excessive constructions n vehicular pollutions including massive deforestation n squeezing of rivers by way of throwing tons of muck, silt and boulders into them ferociously throwing to winds supreme court directives and construction of big dams etc.
The cloud burst incidents and ecological disasters as the one happened in June 2013 due to massive cloud bursts and over filling of Gandhi Sarovar above Kedarnath and the one recently happened due to angushing floods in Dhauli Ganga as a result of cloud bursts again claiming several hundred lives and collossal loss to Vishnugaad Hydro Power project of NTPC are all man made disasters.
These ecological disasters caused by cloud bursts, earthquake, flash floods, burning of jungles etc gravely impact the physical, psychological, social and economic lives of the population leading to collossal losses of humans, flora and fauna, properties and economic loss etc.
During the 2013 disaster not only had more than 200 villages completely destroyed but more than ten thousand people died.
Recently in Dev Prayag a fortnight ago a cloud burst incident completely damaged an ITI building n a bank as hundreds of tons of water came down creating havoc including the one at Uttarkashi creating flash floods.
T S Bhandari
Well informed, with due reminders on previous calamities.