Dharali: Local people in Uttarakhand’s Dharali gather around the village’s last remaining temple, untouched by the flash floods that consumed houses, shops and fields. The temple courtyard is bustling with activity—a new set of rations have arrived on the back of mules from Mukhawa, the town on the opposite side of the Bhagirathi river.
“For now, we are focusing on getting people food and stabilising this area,” said Bhatwari Sub Divisional Magistrate (SDM) Shalini Negi, who had arrived to oversee relief operations. “Once the roads open, the situation will return to normal and our supplies will start coming in. Everything depends on helicopters right now.”
Negi was crosschecking the list of rations, ensuring that everything from slippers and tents to cooking oil and potatoes were in abundance. Inside the temple, sacks of rice remain stacked beside bags of tea. The floods had destroyed apple orchards, vegetable patches and crops—local people were now completely dependent on rations for their sustenance.
Personnel from the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and the Uttarakhand Police unpacked mattresses, sneakers and food in the courtyard before distributing it to local people who have been staying at homes near the temple for the last six days. Many of the residents were evacutaed to Uttarkashi.
In parallel, members from the Department of Horticulture were taking down names of people who had lost crops, fruits and vegetables to the floods. “People grew apples, cherries, cabbage and even rajma,” said Vishwas Bhandari, an official with the department whose job involves introducing farmers to the latest machinery and farming techniques. “We are just taking down the number of apple trees that were destroyed, machines that were damaged and even chemical fertilisers that have been lost to the floods.”
Bhandari went on to add that the numbers reported by local people would be cross checked with both satellite imagery and land records from the revenue department before compensation was decided, whether monetary or in kind.
While activity in the temple courtyard focused on the survivors, the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and the Indian Army continued rescue operations down below, near the low-lying banks of the river where the town’s market, homes and hotels lay completely submerged.
Rescue work on
Dressed in bright orange, NDRF personnel were busy with shovels, ropes and radar equipment. They made their way down from Mukhawa, as all roads to Dharali had been damaged.
There are 16 NDRF units across India, with each unit comprising 8 teams and each team consisting of 47 personnel. Teams consist of structural engineers, technicians and paramedic support. One of the teams in Dharali had flown in from Haridwar, where the focus of their operations is on drowning-related emergencies. Currently, there are 113 NDRF personnel in the village.
According to one of the team leaders, NDRF had been searching for survivors the day after the floods hit the town. But the debris that has collected on the banks of the river runs almost 40 ft deep. And it’s not just malleable sand, but a mixture of hard rocks, tree trunks and building material.
The team had arrived with sniffer dogs and ground-penetrating radar (GPR) devices, which transmits electromagnetic energy into the ground and analyses the reflections to map features. But both the dogs and devices have limited ranges, far less than the 40 ft of debris that has collected on the banks.
It may take weeks to clear the debris, further delayed by the damaged roads to Dharali. After a temporary bridge was constructed in Gangnani, some 30 km away from the affected areas, there was hope that vehicles and construction equipment would pass through.
But even roads between Gangnani and Dharali have been damaged. Large parts have submerged into the river, leaving only narrow paths attached to the mountain side. Relief efforts in this area serve as a stark reminder to how challenging mountain terrain can be, especially in the aftermath of a disaster event.
(Edited by Tony Rai)