A compendium of 10 recent disasters prepared by the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) holds lessons for the government. In at least half of them, NDMA traced the origins of the disaster to poor planning and changes in land use patterns. The insights should permeate the bureaucracy so that the development framework aligns with local geography. Take the Chamoli disaster of February 7, 2021. A glacier dislodged in the Himalayas, causing flash floods that destroyed two hydropower projects and killed scores of workers. NDMA has cited Chamoli to underline the necessity of “comprehensive risk assessment that goes beyond traditional engineering parameters” and called for technical feasibility to include geological, seismic, and climate risk evaluations. The 2024 Wayanad landslides, NDMA says, offers lessons on the fragility of ecologically sensitive zones. Wayanad lost 62% of its forest cover between 1950 and 2018; tea and coffee plantations as well the mushrooming of tourism have fundamentally altered the landscape’s natural water retention and slope stability characteristics. The Silkyara tunnel had reported 21 collapse incidents of varying severity since the construction commenced. All woke up only after it collapsed in November 2023.
These lessons should guide the State’s scale-up of public infrastructure. Despite Chamoli and Silkyara, the Centre is keen to continue the char dham road widening project in the Bhagirathi Eco-Sensitive Zone. In Mumbai, efforts are on to meet the city’s need for decent urban infrastructure. Its wetlands and mangrove forests, and its developmental aspirations, are not to be posed as binaries. They are part of a seamless whole, and planners should know that the natural habitat could blunt the impact of extreme weather events, frequent in this age of climate crisis.
