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Opinion National Interest PoV 50-Word Edit

ThePrint On Camera Videos In Pictures

Society & Culture Around Town Book Excerpts Vigyapanti The Dating Story

More Judiciary Education YourTurn Work With Us Campus Voice

From Joshimath to Zojila—how Indians are loving the Himalayas to death. Literally

The operating ideology that accessibility is unqualified good and that no peak should be beyond reach turns the mountains into something to be consumed rather than reckoned with.

The last thing that the seven people who died in the avalanche at Zojila Pass on 27 March would have seen was the sunshine. It was the sunshine, in fact, that killed them. 

Midday warmth is known to loosen the snowpack above the Srinagar-Leh highway, sending it down the slopes. It’s also well-known that March is an avalanche-prone month and that the early morning hours, up to 10 am, are generally considered safer than afternoons. The avalanche that occurred between 12.30 pm and 1 pm bore down on a mix of heavy and light vehicles, even though advisories suggest that heavy vehicles be allowed only after light ones. Among the dead is a 10-year-old child, while a search for two more missing people continues. 

In about four weeks, the avalanche will be all but forgotten. The Indian summer will be upon us, and schools will break for the annual vacation. Hours will pass in the delirious search for finding a homestay at the last possible village in Uttarakhand or Himachal. The season must go on, because #TheMountainsAreCalling. What is the death of seven people, when thousands of lives have been lost in the last few years?

Strain on the mountains

For generations, India’s northern states were a salubrious escape from the hellish summer of the plains. As the tourism sector evolved over the last 25 years, and 4×4 road journeys along sleek, many-laned highways replaced sleepy train rides, access to the Himalayas exploded in an unprecedented way. But for the last several years, the mountains have been sounding the alarm bells – in the form of landslides, flash floods, waste and water-management crises. But none of the bad news seems to dent the tourist enthusiasm. 

Take Uttarakhand’s Joshimath, for instance. The culturally significant historical town is the gateway to several religious and tourist sites, like Hemkund Sahib and Auli. In 2023, 700 buildings developed cracks and became unfit for residence. The town, situated on debris left by ancient landslides, also began to sink. 

But this wasn’t the first time Joshimath was under the microscope. Cracks in its houses first appeared in the 1960s. In 1976, a state committee recommended that blasting of boulders be immediately stopped, a pucca drainage system be developed, and chopping trees be banned to prevent landslides. 

Joshimath, however, is now filled with luxury hotels. 

By 2023, the town’s slow-motion sinking had become a cautionary tale about what unscientific construction on unstable mountain terrain actually looks like. By the following........

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