Nature Warns: People Forget

We need new, small and smart townships to ease the pressure from centres like Joshimath

- Charu Pant

What is happening at Joshimath is nothing new. For at least the last 25 years, Molta and Mahamolta—villages with a population of about a 1,000 people and about 25km from Joshimath—have been sinking. I visited these villages sometime back. People are mostly not aware of what is happening. This phenomenon gets traction only when there is loss or displacement because of it.

While the sinking (subsidence) has been going on for some time, it never happened at this scale; a large area is affected this time. Clearly, it is alarming as many houses are already damaged and have been rendered unsuitable for habitation.

Joshimath is located in the higher Himalayan region and there is a tectonic line just to its south called the Main Central Thrust. The older rocks, forming the basement in the crustal profile, have moved because of the compression resulting from the northward movement and subsequent collision of the Indian plate with the Eurasian plate.

The Himalayas are young fold mountains and the tectonic dangers have to be kept in mind. The Indian plate is moving northward against the Eurasian plate at the rate of 55mm per year. There is a buildup and accumulation of a lot of stress and pressure which is sometimes accommodated by faults, thrusts and tectonic movements. This entire belt—Pithoragarh, Uttarkashi, Bagheshwar, Chamoli, Rudraprayag—falls in zone 5, the highest category of earthquake-prone regions.