“This was a natural event, which gets converted into massive disaster due to inappropriate actions by the responsible agencies and persons. Haphazard development around the secondary rivers caused this terrible devastation. If they would have followed recommendation of Bhagirathi ‘Economic Sensitive Zone’ (ESZ) and would have discouraged development in the floodplain areas, this tragedy could have been averted”.

Mallika Bhanot, Monitoring Committee Member, Bhagirathi ESZ

The recent dreadful cloudburst in Uttarkashi, (Utrakhand State of India) is a huge wake-up call to all of us. The horrifying flood swept away the entire village of Dharali and surrounding areas within no time. The village with less than 1000 population had market area full of houses, shops, hotels and homestay. The lively settlements of Dharali village turned into silent rubble as soon as the flood entered into the area. The place used to be an attractive tourist hub on the way to Gangotari (holy place of Hindu), has now lost its very identity. It was not floodwater, it was storm of scream, shout and cries, which did not give any chance to think and recover. The flood carrying mud, debris and stones travelled from 1230 ft. height at the speed of 43 km per hour and hence destroyed everything including tall buildings within 40 seconds. The whole scene was terrible and scary. It was nature’s anger and was telling loudly to be sensitive while dealing with them. We cut mountains to build road, destroy forest and muddle with the path of rivers.

The message was clear, do not temper with nature, otherwise nature will take revenge in its own way. We must respect the aspirations of the local people and promote development, which is ecologically sensitive, risk friendly and balanced in approach. We need to change the trend and the direction of development in the Himalayan region, not the speed of development. Both environment and risk impact assessment should be made compulsory before initiating any development project in the region. This event was not isolated. Across the Hindu Kush Himalayan region, people are witnessing an alarming increase in extreme weather phenomena causing sudden cloudbursts, flash floods, and landslides, that threaten lives, livelihoods, infrastructures and ecosystems. Day-by-day, these incidents are becoming more devastating due to their increasing frequency and intensity, which links directly to the escalating impacts of climate change.

The Himalayas of HK region is often called the “Water Tower of Asia,” and are very sensitive to growing climate change impacts. As explained by Mr. Anjali Prakash (2025), rising temperatures cause glaciers to melt and increase the amount of atmospheric moisture. Warmer air holds more water vapor — approximately 7 per cent more for every degree Celsius of warming. This extra moisture often results in intense, localized rainfall events, like cloudbursts, which are sudden, powerful downpours over small areas. These events often dump significant amounts of water in minutes, causing floods, landslides, and large-scale of destruction. Recently, the incidents of cloudburst have increased both in frequency and intensity. The tough terrain magnifies these effects, as steep slopes and loose soil make landslides more likely, while narrow valleys funnel floodwaters into villages, causing sudden and severe damage. The monsoon season of 2025 itself recorded 30-35 cloudbursts in the region. Besides, 822 ‘extreme weather’ cases were recorded between January 2022 to March 2025, which costed 2863 lives and losses of economic infrastructures worth of thousands of crores. The exact reason of Dharali village dreadful flooding is still debatable. People are also talking of GLOF, glaciofluvial landslide or even cascading disasters (mix of heat, glacier melt, landslide and rain), that could be the reason of this incident. We will have more accurate information in next few days.

Till date, five people are reported dead, 250 plus people are missing while more than 1000 people are rescued by forces mobilized on the ground. The disaster response forces have exhibited their skills and expertise in rescuing people trapped in different conditions. In this case, ‘Early Warning System’ was found short in its effectiveness, and it was probably due to limited Automatic Weather Stations (AWS) in the Himalayas, essential for capturing real-time data on temperature, rainfall, and atmospheric pressure in remote and high-altitude areas. At the same time, people are not hesitant to say that we have learned very little after the deadly incident of Kedarnath 2013, which was also known as ‘Himalayan Tsumani’. More than 5000 people lost their life and many went missing. More than 100 villages were swept away while the regions suffered mammoth economic and infrastructure losses. That time also, many people questioned, if it was an act of nature or negligence and imbalanced approach of development taken by us. Mainstreaming of disaster and climate risk into planning and development was not found very effective.

Saving life of people who are trapped in houses and rubbles in Dharali village is of paramount importance. However, the post disaster context of the affected areas is full of hurdle and challenges. The area was almost out of electricity and communication for first two days and therefore smooth flow of information was not happening. Because of extreme weather condition and damage of connecting roads, sending immediate relief and rescue team was also delayed. Building risk integrated resilient infrastructure should be of priority to check economic losses and strengthen emergency response and rescue. In-spite the entire government machineries are deployed, implementing smooth emergency response is facing a huge challenge. The mobilization of multiple forces like; ITBP, SDRF and NDRF shows governments’ seriousness and proactiveness to deal with this disaster with highest priority and best efforts. The Chief Minister himself is on driving seat and closely monitoring the all-side support mobilized and dispatched to this area on regular intervals. They are practicing ‘whole of a government approach’ in real sense.

The mountainous country like Nepal must closely follow and learn from this devastating incident of Dharali village. Lessons learned at this stage will help to better plan and manage similar incidents that may occur any moment in the future. Being a part of HK region, Nepal is also prone to extreme and changing weather pattern, having difficult terrain and limited accessibility to many parts of the region. The author would like to present following key lessons, which are more relevant and useful from our country disaster management landscape perspective -

• develop appropriate knowledge and awareness about cloudburst, GLOF and extreme weather and weather challenges of Himalayas. Minimize causes by controlling rise in temperature.
• discourage development of settlements, markets and tourist hub along any major river/water channel. Do not construct on floodplains or encroach river path.
• do not exploit and temper with nature and disturb natural ecosystems. Stop cutting mountains and forest and invade rivers and their path to implement development projects.
• focus on promoting new research and innovations to prescribe amicable solutions to development challenges of the region.
• promote uses of ‘Nature based Solutions’ to minimize tempering of fragile nature and ecosystems of Himalayan region.
• Increase investment in DRRM. promote building resilient infrastructure to minimize damage and destruction of infrastructures and services to check economic losses and allow relief and rescue to reach disaster affected areas on time in case of any disaster or emergency.
• establish Automatic Weather Stations (AWS) at appropriate intervals and make early warning system efficient and effective using real-time data.
• climate risk and climate change adaptation must be central to ‘development policy’ in Himalayan region. Building resilient community and promoting resilient development should be the priority of this region.
• Integrate ecological solutions into infrastructure planning and development.
• mainstream disaster and climate risk both in rural and urban development plans. Make sure both environment and risk impact assessments are conducted before implementing any development plan in mountainous region.
• build dedicated disaster reserve force like NDRF and SDRF in India. This is indispensable to make relief and rescue impactful and effective particularly in tough terrain of Himalayas.
• integrate climate risk and climate change adaptation into emergency relief and response strategy. This will help to better prepare for timely emergency response.
• create local level volunteers who are trained and exposed to difficult disaster incidents. Local volunteers bring local and traditional knowledge, understanding of weather patterns and natural warning signs and also familiarity with difficult terrain. Their mobilization would be valuable when outside supports are delayed.

The author is an Urban Governance and DRR Expert and is available at sumankarna@hotmail.com