This is not the first time when the authorities have been caught unaware but then, they had little or no clue of the Dhauliganga flood of February 7, 2021 in Chamoli district of Uttarakhand that killed 204 persons, and devastated two hydropower projects of 13.2 and 520 MW capacity at Rini, on Rishiganga river, and Tapoban, on Dhauliganga river, respectively.
This was however not the first incidence of this kind, and despite having witnessed major devastation in September 2010, August 2012, and June 2013 in similar incidences there really exists no mechanism on ground to assess the flood situation, generate warnings, and communicate these to the people residing in areas likely to be affected.
Though underplayed by media, this is a major lapse, and the situation cannot really be improved unless debated, and discussed to formulate a clear plan of action with a definite timelines.
Based on the analysis of the situation it is recommended that the concerned disaster management authorities take note of the following points, discuss these with the experts, prepare suitable plan of action, and implement the same in a time bound manner so as to prevent or mitigate devastation from similar incidences in future.
Disaster risk assessment
Flood vulnerability of Dhauliganga river was certainly missed out while planning the hydropower projects (one of which is a major one with 520 MW capacity) as is evident from the fact that both historical account, and fields evidences show occurrence of river damming, and flooding in the valley in the past.
Detailed inventory of previous disaster incidences is therefore recommended to establish the hazard profile of the area before initiating any major infrastructure project. Comprehensive risk assessment should thereafter be undertaken with due regard to low frequency extreme events with long recurrence periods. This should be made a mandatory legal requirement for all major developmental projects in the fragile Himalayan region. Putting these reports in public domain would deprive risk transfer coverage to unsafe projects. This in turn would ensure implementation of only disaster safe projects in the region.
Warning generation and dissemination
Saving human lives is the first, and foremost objective of response agencies on the aftermath of any disaster. Warning, precise in space, time, and magnitude with adequate lead time has the potential of saving human lives, if communicated effectively to the population likely to be affected by the incidence.
With present level of technical knowledge, instrumentation, expertise, and communication facilities warnings, particularly of hydro-meteorological events, can be easily generated well in advance, and disseminated. A network of hydro-meteorological observatories with real time data transmission capability can be calibrated for this purpose to provide rainfall threshold based flood / flash flood, and landslide related warnings. Rather than general broadcast efforts should be made to hook on to location based applications, and provide warnings to majority of the persons residing in the area likely to be affected.
Streams and rivers are generally dammed at places with favourable geomorphic configuration, and these areas can be identified through dedicated geomorphic mapping. Appropriate monitoring infrastructure can be resorted to around these identified places for prompt mitigation measures in case of damming.
Diversification
Diversification of assets, though a risk reduction strategy, ensures equitable development of the entire region. In the present context two hydropower projects were located in close proximity, and both were damaged by the flood incidence. It is therefore suggested that as a policy measure, major infrastructure not be allowed to be concentrated in a particular area.
At present most investors desist from venturing to remote areas, and prefer to invest around places with relatively better infrastructure, and facilities. To start with the state could create basic facilities, and infrastructure in different parts of the state, which could be an incentive for the investors to explore possibilities of setting up their venture in these areas. As a by-product, this exercise would ensure balanced development of the entire region.
Responsibility of hydropower projects
Suitable legislation needs to be put in place to mandate the management of the hydropower projects to establish necessary warning generation, and dissemination infrastructure for hazards that are prevalent in the region. Standalone warnings by individual hydropower project is certainly not going to be effective, and there has to be an integrated system into which all the hydropower projects pool their inputs. The concerned disaster management authorities need to work on putting in place such a system.
Had such a system been in place, warning from the hydropower project on Rishiganga river would have certainly averted loss of human lives at Tapoban.
Investment in DRR professionals
Despite having created institutions and authorities for effective disaster management, adequate investment on nurturing relevant professionals is lacking at all levels – from nation to the districts. In the present instance, with hardly any trained and specialised manpower the concerned disaster management authority could do little to avert such a disaster.
It is therefore recommended that a dedicated cadre of disaster management professionals be put in place, nurtured, and provided liberty, and autonomy of experimenting, and putting in place systems to timely, and accurately assess the disaster threat, and take measures including warning dissemination to ward off the devastation.
It needs to be kept in mind that these services, and facilities have to be created in house by the disaster management authorities, and consultant driven approach of solving problems that is becoming increasingly common needs to be avoided as these provide one time output that either becomes nonfunctional or redundant very soon due to nonavailability of manpower to operate, and update it.
Specialised response
In the present incidence 30-35 persons were trapped in a tunnel of the hydropower project at Tapoban that was choked by the debris brought down by the floodwaters. Unfortunately these persons could not be saved despite sustained efforts by the response agencies.
It is a must out here to acknowledge that neither the agencies nor the personnel engaged in rescue operations had prior experience, knowledge, and expertise of carrying out rescue operations in a tunnel. These at the same time did not have specialised equipment that could have helped in pinpointing the location of the trapped persons, promptly reaching them, and taking measures for enhancing their chances of survival.
The efforts of the response agencies focused mainly on debris removal using earth movers. This was indeed a time consuming, and tedious affair as only one machine could actually be deployed at a time due to limitation of space, and increasing water content of the debris made this operation all the more challenging. Moreover, precious time was wasted in manoeuvring the earth movers in and out of the tunnel. On its part, the state could not contact the agencies or personnel having experience of tackling similar situations, as no one around had details of these agencies or persons.
This brings forth the need of quick assessment of the situation, and accordingly mobilising specialised response. A repository of agencies and persons having capability, knowledge, expertise, experience, and equipment for providing specialised response in different disaster situations therefore needs to be prepared by the national disaster management authority, and shared with the states.
Ex gratia and other benefits to next of kin of missing persons
In the remote mountainous areas it is often hard to retrieve bodies of the persons affected by disaster incidences, particularly in case of flash flood, and landslide wherein bodies are either washed off, struck underwater or buried under thick pile of debris. Bodies of large number of persons could not be retrieved in previous disaster incidences in the province that include Malpa, and Bastari landslides in Pithoragarh district in 1998 and 2016 respectively, and Okhimath landslide, and Mandakini flash flood in Rudraprayag district in 1998 and 2013 respectively.
As regards declaring a missing person as being dead Section 108 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 requires that the person concerned not be heard of for seven years by those who would naturally have heard of him/her if he/she had been alive, with burden of proving him/her alive shifted to the person who affirms it.
The next of kin of the missing person however require death certificate for claiming the ex gratia relief amount payable by the government, as also for settling various property and inheritance related issues. Non issuance of death certificate or waiting for the same for 7 long years as stipulated by the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 is to add to the trauma of the next of kin of the missing persons.
Death certificates are issued in India in accordance with the provisions of Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 1969, and therefore Registrar General of India has to be requested to issue guidelines for declaring missing persons in that specific disaster as being dead, and issuing death certificates.
In the present incidence guidelines for declaring missing persons as being dead were issued by the Registrar General of India on February 21, 2021. Besides being applicable for this very incidence it has provision of public notification with regard to the presumed dead persons, and seeking objections on the same from general public within 30 days. This process is therefore to take 2-3 months.
Standardized, and simple guidelines, and procedures are therefore required to be put in place for declaring persons missing in a disaster incidences as being dead, so as to do away with the requirement of approaching the Registrar General of India after every single disaster in which persons go missing. This would ensure that the next of kin of the missing persons get the ex gratia relief in time together with death certificate, and are not unnecessarily traumatised.
Abnormal meteorological observations
The present incidence was accompanied by abnormal rise in temperature; between February 6 and 7, 2021 Tapoban at an altitude of 2000 m experienced rise of 2.8o and 5.4o C respectively in minimum, and maximum temperature while the rise at Auli (2600 m) was observed to be 6.0o and 9.6o C respectively.
It is therefore suggested that abnormal changes in meteorological parameters be taken note of seriously, and correlated with possible triggering of some hazard prevalent in the proximity. Precautionary actions can also be initiated based on such observation. This exercise is sure to be futile in most instances but is certainly worth trying, as it could sometimes save human lives.
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