Joshimath

The Joshimath town in Uttarakhand's Chamoli district is facing its worst crisis as hundreds of houses have developed cracks due to land subsidence. Over 600 families in Joshimath have been rehabilitated on an urgent basis and the town has been declared a 'landslide subsidence zone', part of the reason being the rapid urbanisation it has undergone in the past few years. Uttarakhand CM Pushkar Singh Dhami, who is constantly reassuring the panicked residents of a solution, said that PM Narendra Modi is keeping a close watch on the situation after chairing a high-level meeting over the issue on Sunday. Causes for sinking of Joshimath Joshimath is witnessing land subsidence, or in other words, it is 'sinking' due to multiple reasons both natural and unnatural. Although the town endured a horrific glacier outburst in February 2021, large-scale urbanization due to the increased tourist footfall is one of the biggest reasons for the tragedy. The glacier outburst was reported when a large chunk of the Nanda Devi glacier broke off causing overwhelming floods in the region and causing serious damage to the infrastructure. (Image: Twitter/@JairamRamesh) If the crisis is traced back several decades, we would find that Joshimath is based on an enormous amount of debris that accumulated due to a massive landslide triggered by earthquake that occured over a century ago. This was the reason why the Mishra Committee, which published a report after conducting a ground survey in 1976, warned ...

Joshimath, India – It was 3.40am on January 3 when Digambar Singh Bisht woke up hearing a loud rumble. “It felt like the ground beneath us would crack open,” he told Al Jazeera. The house shook and the glass windowpanes of two nearby hotels got shattered. The family of five rushed out in fear. “We spent the night on the road,” the 41-year-old said. In the morning, Bisht returned to a house that was severely damaged with wide cracks on the walls and the floor. It had become unliveable. Cracks were also visible on some patches of the town’s roads. Bisht lives in A view of the Joshimath town in India’s northern Uttarakhand state [Sadiq Naqvi/Al Jazeera] As panic set in and the protests became shriller, the local administration moved the Bisht family to a room in the Joshimath municipality building. Several families whose houses were damaged, including the Bishts, have been residing in the building for more than a month now. “We were told that this relocation is temporary and the government will provide us proper compensation and rehabilitation. But we haven’t yet heard anything from the government,” Bisht told Al Jazeera, adding that his family has received a compensation of only 150,000 rupees ($1,820). Officials say parts of the town are sinking. Bisht’s house is among 860-odd “unsafe” buildings where cracks have been identified so far. The government has At least 240 families have been temporarily Authorities have Officials say parts of the Joshimath town are sinking [Sadi...

Joshimath has been declared a landslide and subsidence-hit zone, with the Centre emphasising that the immediate priority is the safety of people and asking experts to prepare short and long-term conservation and rehabilitation plans. Senior Uttarakhand government officials visited the worst-affected Manohar Bagh, Singdhar, and Marwari areas and urged residents to relocate to temporary relief centres. And the administration is working to relocate more families living in houses with large cracks to safe locations. As efforts remain on, it’s essential to understand what is happening at Joshimath, especially what land subsidence is, and what causes it. What is Land Subsidence? Subsidence is ground sinking. It is caused by underground material movement, but is most commonly caused by the removal of water, oil, natural gas, or mineral resources from the ground through pumping, fracking, or mining activities. Natural events such as earthquakes, soil compaction, glacial isostatic adjustment, erosion, sinkhole formation, and adding water to fine soils deposited by wind can also cause subsidence (a natural process known as loess deposits), explains a report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (US). Subsidence can occur over very large areas, such as entire states or provinces, or over very small areas, such as a corner of your yard. A picture shared by the United States Geological Survey shows what land subsidence can do. Take a look: Land subsidence in California...

Hundreds of grey stacks of cement slabs lay around a village near Joshimath in India’s Himalayan mountain state of Uttarakhand. For months, residents in Joshimath, a holy town burrowed high up in India’s Himalayan mountains, have seen their homes slowly sink. They pleaded for help, but it never arrived. In January, their town made national headlines. Big, deep cracks had emerged in over 860 homes, making them unlivable. JOSHIMATH, India — Inside a shrine overlooking snow-capped mountains, Hindu priests heaped spoonfuls of puffed rice and ghee into a crackling fire. They chanted in Sanskrit, hoping their prayers would somehow turn back time and save their holy — and sinking — town. For months, the approximately 20,000 residents of Joshimath — a town burrowed in the Himalayas and revered by Hindu and Sikh pilgrims — have watched the earth slowly swallow their community. They pleaded for help that never arrived. In January, their desperate plight made it into the international spotlight. By then, Joshimath was a disaster zone. Multi-storied hotels slumped to one side. Cracked roads gaped open. More than 860 homes were uninhabitable, splayed by deep fissures that snaked through ceilings, floors and walls. Instead of saviors, they got bulldozers that razed lopsided swaths of the town. The holy town was built on piles of debris left behind by years of landslides and earthquakes. Scientists have warned for decades that Joshimath couldn’t withstand the level of heavy construction ...

In October 2021, cracks first appeared in a few houses in Uttarakhand’s Joshimath town. Over a year later, by January 11, 723 houses in all of the nine wards in the town have At a height of 6,107 feet, Joshimath is a busy town in Chamoli district. Despite a population of only about 23,000, it has been heavily built-on, with hotels, resorts, and a bustling market that caters mainly to tourists, pilgrims, trekkers and personnel of the army and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP). Joshimath crisis | Border Management Secretary, NDMA members to visit Uttarakhand After the 1962 India-China war, Joshimath emerged as a place of strategic importance. It leads to villages along the India-China border and is also en route to Barahoti, a disputed territory along the border. The town is also a gateway to noted sites of pilgrimage – Badrinath for Hindus and Hemkund Sahib for Sikhs; the international skiing site of Auli; and the Valley of Flowers, a UNESCO World Heritage site. Today, Joshimath is overly burdened with structures built without any regard for the land’s load-bearing capacity. Geological setting The signs of sinking first appeared in October 2021, when 14 families in the Chhawani Bazar locality noted cracks in their houses. Subsequently, cracks continued to appear around town and residents resorted to repairs. The situation became particularly alarming towards the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023, when large parts of the town experienced sudden land-sinking and sever...

To Start receiving timely alerts please follow the below steps: • Click on the Menu icon of the browser, it opens up a list of options. • Click on the “Options ”, it opens up the settings page, • Here click on the “Privacy & Security” options listed on the left hand side of the page. • Scroll down the page to the “Permission” section . • Here click on the “Settings” tab of the Notification option. • A pop up will open with all listed sites, select the option “ALLOW“, for the respective site under the status head to allow the notification. • Once the changes is done, click on the “Save Changes” option to save the changes. Joshimath is a town in the Garwhal Himalayas and is an altitude of 1890 meters. It is also an important way station on both the pilgrimage and trekking circuits. This town however is on a fragile mountain sloped houses 20,000 people. Moreover the problem has become immense due to unplanned and indiscriminate development. The study said that the perennial streams, appreciable snow in the upper reaches and highly weathered gneissic rocks with low cohesive characteristics make the area prone to landslides. "Flood events of June 2013 and February 2021 had adverse impact on the landslide zone with toe erosion and sliding along Ravigram Nala and the Nau Ganga Nala having increased since the February 7, 2021, flooding of Rishi Ganga," the study added. Huge volume of debris-laden water brought down by the Dhauliganga during a previous flood event (February 2021) h...