Landslides in Uttarkashi, one dead

A large part of the holy town situated on the banks of river Bhagirathi was submerged in the slush and traffic on the highway has been stopped.

Pingal Dass, 70, a tailor by profession, was killed when he opened the door of his house and was hit a landslide. He died of head injuries.

Panic gripped the area and residents, accusing the Government of failing to carry out treatment work to prevent such landslides on the Varunavrat mountain, turned violent. They beat up officials of Tehri Hydro-Electric Development Corporation, the agency involved in the treatment work.

The landslides reminded many of September 2003 when a large part of Uttarkashi had been swept away, leaving many hotels, shops and houses buried under debris from the mountain. The Government has sounded an alert, asking people residing at the foothills of Varunavat to vacate their houses.

“We have evacuated the people and started giving them food and shelter on the local college premises,” S M Nautiyal, Additional District Magistrate (ADM) of Uttarkashi, said.

In the past 10 days, in fact, in anticipation of landslides from the Varunavrat, district authorities had evacuated more than 750 people from the foothills to carry out treatment work of the mountains. These people have been getting one meal a day at the local college.

The slide-prevention work on the mountain, in fact, is under a cloud with Uttarakhand Lokayukta Justice S H A Raza (retd) pointing out in a report that large sums of money had been spent with no permanent benefits to the town. While the Central Government had provided Uttarakhand Rs 282 crore for the treatment of the Varaunavrat mountain, a sum of Rs 67 crore has already been spent.