Hyderabad, 22 April 2005
The National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA), Hyderabad has released a report which declares that 1200 villages in the Uttaranchal are highly prone to landslide disaster. The report says that, located in one of the most seismically active area of the country, these villages live on the verge of destruction by earthquakes, landslides and rockfalls.
According to Dr P C Nawani, Director of Geological Survey of India, Dehradun, “The area of Uttaranchal comes in high-sensitive zone. NRSA has given a report in this regard. It started working on the report in the year 2001 on a request from Uttaranchal and Himachal Pradesh governments. NRSA has provided an account of risk zones from the landslide point of view. Earthquake factor too is present. The agency has also conveyed to the government about the rehabilitation and treatment measures to be taken in this regard.”
However, a more detailed study would be beneficial in order to solve the problem, says Nawani.
According to the report, all these 1200 villages lie along the Rishikesh – Badrinath- Gangotril- Kedarnath passageway. About 600 villages lie along the Rishkesh-Badrinath route, 200 along the Rudraprayag- Kedarnath and about 150 along the Pithoragarh- Malpa route. Similarly, about 275 villages prone to landslides lie along the Rishikesh-Uttarkashi-Gangoti-Gomukh trek.
The state government is seeking help from the Centre in this regard. According to Chief Minister Narayan Dutt Tiwari, the Government has asked the Centre to implement the disaster management scheme in the area on a larger scale.
“We have asked Geological Survey of India to inform us about those villages, which are more prone to the dangers. First of all, we would like to provide a safeguard to those villages and then we would like to chalk out a plan for other villages as well. We have also asked the Centre to implement the disaster management scheme in Uttaranchal on a larger scale. The same thing has been proposed for the State of Jammu and Kashmir,” said N. D. Tiwari.
In the past, a number of landslides have ravaged the area displacing several families and killing hundreds. Frequent landslides could be attributed to internal and external forces. uman interference too leads to unforeseen disasters. (ANI)
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