P E R S P E C T I V E

J-K flood fury
A threat everyone knew, but refused to believe
The bowl-shaped lay of the land in Srinagar is such that once the Jhelum waters breach, there is nowhere for the floodwater to drain. This is a well known fact that everyone has chosen to ignore.
by Ehsan Fazili, Majid Jahangir & Ishfaq Tantry
A day before the Srinagar city was inundated on September 7, the Jhelum kept flowing above the danger mark, but life was normal, with most people unaware of the disaster waiting to happen.

Climate change or local weather gone crazy?
by Vibha Sharma
Independent agencies often sound a red herring, but when it comes to government agencies, climate change is like a classified issue. There is an urgency to dismiss any correlation between an extreme event and the looming prospect of climate change. However, the J&K catastrophe has prompted officials to concede it calls for an intense investigation.

Capital goes under, normalcy can only be a hope
by Arun Joshi
The images are stark. Distressed souls crying for help from rooftops, boats carrying rescued people to safety, others silently mourning the loss of everything they had accumulated for their children, helpless parents begging for food and water for their children. There were neither doctors nor medicines.

Pushed, rivers put life off course
There has been a massive loss to life and property in J&K. Man is as much responsible for the catastrophe as freak weather.
by Sumit Hakhoo
The four days of rains which lashed J&K from September 3 left unprecedented devastation after the swollen Jhelum in Srinagar and the Tawi, Chenab, Ujj and Suran in the Jammu region breached their banks, destroying thousands of homes.

Choking wetlands
State government officials admit that 50 per cent lakes, ponds and the wetlands in Srinagar, the winter capital of J&K, have been converted into residential and commercial places. Encroachment started in the late 1960s, when new colonies were established on fertile agricultural fields and marshes at Shivpora, Indira Nagar, Sanat Nagar, Rawal Pora and several other areas that have now been inundated.

Cut-off villages can’t be reached
While the battle is on against time to save lakhs of people marooned in Srinagar city, rescue teams have failed to reach several cut-off villages in the 10 districts of the Jammu region even after nine days of the calamity. The ravaged districts include Poonch, Rajouri, Reasi and Udhampur, where landslides have destroyed houses built on hillocks.

J-K flood fury
A threat everyone knew, but refused to believe
The bowl-shaped lay of the land in Srinagar is such that once the Jhelum waters breach, there is nowhere for the floodwater to drain. This is a well known fact that everyone has chosen to ignore.
by Ehsan Fazili, Majid Jahangir & Ishfaq Tantry

A day before the Srinagar city was inundated on September 7, the Jhelum kept flowing above the danger mark, but life was normal, with most people unaware of the disaster waiting to happen.

LIFE BREACHED: The Jhelum that snakes through Srinagar left few areas untouched as it breached its banks on September 7. afp

But the river was swelling and the city of over a million souls was hopeful that the waters would recede as it had already stopped raining. Though the authorities were fearing the worst, they also appeared oblivious of the magnitude of the disaster that would unfold. The state administration was caught on the wrong foot with no idea how to handle the situation. It was clueless about how to prevent the entry of waters into the city, and how to save people.

Even as it was raining heavily and water was entering parts of south Kashmir, the civil administration was nowhere to be seen. The telecommunication and road connectivity was disrupted and all essential services gave way to the rising waters.

Officials had informed residents of Rajbagh and Jawahar Nagar who were seeking help that they should shift to the first or upper floors of their houses. “I called the local SHO at about 8.30 pm. He told me to move to the upper portion of the house. I called him again around 12.30 am and he told me not to worry and go to sleep,” says Mohammad Yamin of Jawahar Nagar. He has been rendered homeless and has taken refuge along with his family in the Budgam area.

On September 4, the Jhelum was flowing at 21.9 metres, well above the danger mark. On Saturday night, hours before the city started flooding, the water levels began rising very fast and crossed the 26-metre height, something that had never occurred in the memory of the people of Kashmir.

The authorities made announcements in mosques in some localities, urging people to shift to safer places. However, residents did not heed to the warning as the city had never seen floods in decades.

“People cannot complaint that we did not warn them. They did nothing about it,” Chief Minister Omar Abdullah told a TV channel.

However, the warning by the government is being termed lame. “As per international standards, people need to be convinced to leave. You can't just issue warnings over microphones in mosques and expect people to leave, particularly when they have never seen floods. Such announcements do not work anywhere in the world,” says Ahmad Wani, a student of Standford University in the US.

By Sunday afternoon, the waters had inundated over half of the city. Thousands of residential houses were flooded and nearly three lakh people were trapped inside their houses even as the Army, Air Force and NDRF teams launched a massive rescue and relief operation.

“People were kept in the dark and no warnings were issued,” says another resident from the area. The only solace had been the voice from Radio Kashmir Srinagar, reading out SOS messages from marooned people. But that voice was also lost as the floodwaters entered the premises of Radio Kashmir Srinagar. The voice resurfaced on September 12, urging the civil administration to come to the help of people.

Meanwhile, the waters continued to wreak havoc. By the time people rose on Sunday morning, there was water everywhere. By September 7, the floodwaters had already inundated Rajbagh and Shivpora localities and was now flowing fast towards the commercial centres of the city like Lal Chowk, Jehangir Chowk, Abi Guzar and other areas housing the Assembly complex, J&K High Court Complex, Civil Secretariat, Police Control Room, zonal police and fire and emergency services headquarters.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in the state on Sunday to take stock and offered all help. The state government machinery was, however, not visible on the first day.

Such was the breakdown of the official machinery that a senior official of the Union Government had to route his communication through a neighbouring district to rescue a retired SSP from Rajbagh. A former DGP, Ghulam Hassan Shah, was trapped along with his wife for two days and was rescued after much effort. Police communication lines were down and political leaders had to be rescued from their official residences. The government was in no way ready for such a disaster.

The entire communication network was down in Kashmir by Sunday evening, creating chaos and hitting the rescue operation on day one. Doordarshan and Radio Kashmir had to suspend its operation after water flooded their offices. All major hospitals were waterlogged and patients had to be shifted to Sheri-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences.

“It is all over. We may never emerge from this disaster,” says Tufail Ahmed, a resident of Karan Nagar. “My elders say they have never seen such floods.”

The day before Srinagar was inundated, The Tribune ran a story warning that the Jhelum may breach the 1928 disaster mark, when the discharge in the river was recorded at above 80,000 cusecs. “For the last three to four years, Kashmir has been witnessing above normal snowfall. With increasing temperature, the water level was already high in the river and other streams. The discharge in Jhelum was further increased by incessant rains,” the head of earth sciences department, Kashmir University, had said.

With floods devastating the city, it will take years for the people and businesses to recover from the catastrophe.

De-watering pumps Water levels in most areas are very high and can recede only if manual de-watering is done by pumps Rajbagh, Jawahar Nagar and Gogjibagh had 12 de-watering stations, but these have been rendered defunct due to flooding Heavy industrial duty pumps are required in low-lying areas of Qamarwari, Bemina and Karannagar There is a dearth of such pumps in the Valley; these are available with NTPC, ONGC, Reliance and fire departments across the country Two lakes and a river Source is in Verinag, South Kashmir, on the western slopes of the Pir Panjal mountains that flank the Valley Fed by glaciers in northern Kashmir Flows between Greater Himalaya and Pir Panjal and through the Dal and Wular lakes Navigable up to Khadiniyar locality in Baramulla district Pak opposed attempts by India to regulate Wular Lake flow; claiming it violates the 1960 Indus treaty Flowing past Baramulla, the Jhelum turns north-west and enters a 130-km gorge, where it loses elevation rajbir singh The making of sorrow The Jhelum, which flows across Kashmir, has the normal discharge capacity of 35,000 cusecs On September 5, the water discharge surpassed the 1992 record of 65,000 cusecs, when most parts of Srinagar were inundated The capacity of the 45-km flood channel originating in the Rambagh area to drain out excess waters from the Jhelum is 17,000 cusecs The flood channel breached its embankments on September 7, inundating nearby areas Experts had warned that if the river continued to rise in the face of heavy rains since September 2, it might breach the 80,000-cusec mark recorded during the 1928 catastrophic flood. The government never undertook the de-silting of the flood channel or the river A warning ignored since 1893 English writer Sir Walter Roper Lawrence, who was appointed the first Settlement Commissioner of Kashmir, wrote “The Valley of Kashmir” in 1895. He recorded his observations on the floods in the Valley in 1893. Excerpts: The flood of 1893 was a great calamity, but it has had the good effect of warning the State that valuable house property in Srinagar was inadequately protected and works are now in progress which may render Srinagar secure from inundation. But the security of the city unfortunately means loss to cultivation on the banks of the river above Srinagar, for all floodwaters of the south must pass the city to the outlet at Baramulla. The more, therefore, that Srinagar is protected, the more obstruction will be there to the passage of waters from the south. All things point to the fact that the founders of Srinagar have bequeathed a serious engineering problem to their successors, and some say the only way out is to lower the bed of the river at Baramulla, regulating the water level of the valley by gates. Others talk of providing an alternative channel to the Jhelum which would run in a north-westerly direction above Srinagar, but the scheme is rendered difficult as the Dudh-Ganga river, the bed of which is higher than Jhelum, must be crossed. Perhaps a solution might be found in dredging. I have pointed out in the second chapter of this report how generation after generation has hemmed in the river, and have shown that the Wular Lake, which is the natural delta of the river, is gradually filling up silt. The whole question is one of the first importance. Naturally Srinagar is the first consideration, but from the point of view of land revenue, it is of equal importance to protect the crops from constant loss by inundation. Misery in Pakistan too A flood victim cries out to relatives as he sits in a boat while being evacuated with his family from his flooded house, following heavy rain in Jhang, Punjab province of Pakistan, on Friday. REUTERS Srinagar Population as per census 2011 12 Lakh District area 294 sq km Flood-affected area 70%

Climate change or local weather gone crazy?
by Vibha Sharma

MAROONED: A boy at a relief camp on the outskirts of Jammu. Tribune Photo: Inderjeet Singh

Independent agencies often sound a red herring, but when it comes to government agencies, climate change is like a classified issue. There is an urgency to dismiss any correlation between an extreme event and the looming prospect of climate change. However, the J&K catastrophe has prompted officials to concede it calls for an intense investigation.

There are two aspects to climate change — atmospheric changes and the following compensation changes, which are observational facts. “(Global) warming is an observed fact. How fast it (climate change) will happen depends on how well we react to it,” says IMD Director-General Lakshman Singh Rathore.

About recurring extreme events, particularly in northwest India, Rathore agrees that variability spectrum is growing, giving credence to the belief that warming is impacting weather patterns. “Any particular change cannot be attributed to climate change. Only if there is a systematic pattern, can it be said so,” he adds. Government agencies are already on the job. Sources say increasing intense events in northwest India and neighbouring areas are being researched.

Freak weather

Apart from the Mumbai floods in 2005, largely it is northwest India which has borne the brunt of “weather variability”. Last year, Uttarakhand faced flood fury while in 2010, Leh cloudburst caused havoc. In 2012, Afghanistan and Pakistan suffered intense rains. Environment NGOs like the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) give a broader perspective to these events with a reference to Mumbai. Former IMD Director-General Ajit Tyagi views the northwest events in relation to the Western Disturbance (WD), which affects the weather pattern in the region. The J&K floods happened due to an interaction between the monsoon current and two intense WDs, he explains.

Western Disturbance

Unseasonal rainfall

Percentage departure from normal in the week Sept 4 to 10.

Study climate changes Every monsoon is different. You cannot relate one extreme event to climate change. There is a difference between climate change and weather variability. When climate change takes place, the variability spectrum increases. Changes are being noticed, but how much these are impacting our weather need to be researched. Lakshman Singh Rathore, imd director-general Change development plans The government should acknowledge that these events are related to climate change. It should change its developmental plans. It should identify sections of population vulnerable to climate change impact. Himanshu Thakkar, south asia network on dams rivers and people

The state has not experienced such a fierce weather episode in the past six decades. The northern most parts of the country receive seasonal rains largely due to the interaction between the monsoon current and the Western Disturbance (WD). The rains in J&K in the June-September monsoon season generally occur due to the juxtaposition between the WD and the monsoon current, says Tyagi.

The mid-lateral systems start moving towards northern latitudes in June — the month monsoon hits the Kerala coastline — and southward transition in September when it begins retreating from the region. “Typically, when the monsoon is active in the northwest (July and August), the mid-lateral system activity largely shifts away,” he adds.

There is a limited chance of an interaction between WDs and the monsoon current in the months when monsoon is active in the northwest. However in recent years, incidents of strong WD descending to interact with the monsoon current are increasing. “A strong WD interacting with the monsoon current was the reason behind the Uttarakhand floods and the events in 2012 and 2010,” he says.

Independent environmentalists are, however, more upfront. CSE director general Sunita Narain terms the J&K disaster a “grim reminder of increasing impact of climate change” and urges the government to “get out of the denial model”.

Himanshu Thakkar of South Asia Network on Dams Rivers and People says: “The reason the government doen’t want to do it is because if you recognise climate change is happening, the next step would be to change development plans, which, possibly, it does not want to. It should start incorporating climate change adaptation plans in all developmental policies and programmes,” he adds.

Manmade disaster

In Uttarakhand, environment abuse was the cause behind the widespread damage and so seems to be the case in J&K. “The scale of disaster in J&K has been exacerbated by unplanned development, especially on the banks,” says Chandra Bhushan, head of the CSE climate change team.

“In the last 100 years, more than 50 per cent lakes, ponds and wetlands of Srinagar have been encroached upon for constructing buildings and roads. Banks of the Jhelum have been taken over in a similar manner, vastly reducing the river’s drainage capacity. These areas have suffered the most,” he says.

Capital goes under, normalcy can only be a hope
by Arun Joshi

FOR DEAR LIFE: Locals wade through floodwaters in central Srinagar on Saturday. AFP

The images are stark. Distressed souls crying for help from rooftops, boats carrying rescued people to safety, others silently mourning the loss of everything they had accumulated for their children, helpless parents begging for food and water for their children. There were neither doctors nor medicines.

On September 6, the Jhelum had started showing its ferocity. The unprecedented rage of the river continued till Sunday evening. Azhar Qadri, The Tribune correspondent in Srinagar, posted on his Facebook page: “This night must end now.” He lives in Bemina, one of the worst-hit localities on the outskirts of Srinagar. Earlier, he had sent an SMS: “Jhelum is flowing madly.”

No one has an idea about the losses and damage. Even after the water levels have receded in some parts of the city, the situation is as unclear as the muddy waters that inundated 70 per cent of the city. If Lal Chowk, the commercial hub, is taken as the focal point, the waters have spread to the saffron fields of Pampore in the south and Shalteng in the north, 10-12 km from the city. It has also spread to Bemina bypass and touches Budgam district in central Kashmir, right till Zakoora, 2 km beyond the Hazratbal shrine.

The capital city was administered the capital punishment by nature for the lack of coordination between the Union Capital and state Capital because of petty politics that was played out over the years on flood protection works. A file seeking Rs 2,200 crore for flood protection works has been moving back and forth between New Delhi and Srinagar for over three years, each time with fresh queries and replies. Where the file is now, no one knows because the civil secretariat housing the administrative heads and the government is submerged.

Before nature announced its verdict, the government was in a deep slumber and woke up only on September 7, the day it discovered it was nowhere. It was lost to the waters and the breakdown of the communication system.

Chief Minister Omar Abdullah justified that he had no government for 24-30 hours as there was no connectivity. Everyone was marooned and he compared the floods in Srinagar to disasters in other states like Orissa, Gujarat and Uttarakhand, where the capital cities were not affected by the ravaging floods or earthquakes. “It was an urban flooding that has no precedent,” he argued. In his book “The Valley of Kashmir”, Walter Lawrence says Srinagar city was inundated twice in the 19th century — 1841 and 1893. In 1893, Srinagar turned into a lake and Maharaja Amar Singh provided rescue boats and made people move to safe places.

On Sunday (September 7), when it was time for the muezzin to give a call for dawn prayers, the roaring waters of the Jhelum tore apart the embankments and flooded the low-lying areas, taking by surprise a population of nearly 7 lakh, of the more than a million people of the capital city.

It was not a matter of hours, rather within minutes, the low-lying localities of Lasjan, Pantha Chowk, Batwara, Badami Bagh Cantonment, Shiv Pora, Indira Nagar, Raj Bagh, Jawhar Nagar, Gogji Bagh, Barzulla, Mehjoor Nagar, Iqbal Park, Rambagh, Peer Bagh, Bemina, Nowgam, Shalteng, Parimpora, Lal Chowk, Press Enclave, Residency Road, Maulna Azad Road and Dal Gate were inundated. These localities are home to most government employees, Kashmiri Pandit families and native Muslims.

The Chief Minister claims that announcements were made through mosques and police vehicles about the impending danger of the Jhelum waters flooding homes in Shivpora and Indira Nagar areas. The evacuation process started in the Sonwar area, home to the residences of ministers and bureaucrats. They were taken to safe places. The rest of the Sonwar Colony, on the other side of Sher-e-Kashmir Cricket Stadium, was left to its fate.

The Army’s headquarters at Badami Bagh Cantonment in Srinagar was also inundated. Its helipad was under water and its 2,000 personnel were marooned. The control room was under 8 to 10 feet water. The roofs of most buildings were submerged.

It will take years before the whole story of the flood-caused devastation in Srinagar would be told in words and pictures. Such is the magnitude of the tragedy that has befallen the state. Nature’s fury and its impact would be felt for decades to come. As of now, the struggle is still on to rescue marooned people. Srinagar would never be the same again.

Pushed, rivers put life off course
There has been a massive loss to life and property in J&K. Man is as much responsible for the catastrophe as freak weather.
by Sumit Hakhoo

The four days of rains which lashed J&K from September 3 left unprecedented devastation after the swollen Jhelum in Srinagar and the Tawi, Chenab, Ujj and Suran in the Jammu region breached their banks, destroying thousands of homes.

Deadend: An aerial view of a bridge that collapsed due to the flashfloods in Kotranka tehsil of Rajouri district of the Jammu region. PTI

The genesis of the flood can be traced to encroachments over the past three decades. Unplanned urbanisation in Jammu and Srinagar and lack of preparedness to deal with flood-related disaster have emerged as the major reasons behind the floods that ravaged the state, claiming about 400 lives and displacing thousands.

An analysis by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) has attributed the floods to unexpected weather pattern and unplanned urbanisation, and the failure of the government to check violation of rules has led to the present fiasco that J&K finds itself in now.

A free for all along the Tawi

The massive destruction of residential structures along the Tawi, Chenab and Ujj in Jammu region has once again brought to focus the illegal construction and encroachment along the river banks by people and the land mafia, particularly over the past two decades, when the city saw itself expand from a mere 32 sq km to 117 sq km (in 2014). Illegal construction on the banks of the Tawi — from Nagrota, Sidhra, Panjthirthi, Circular Road, Gujjar Nagar, Jogi Gate, Bhagwati Nagar and Beli Charana, besides several villages, right till where the river flows into Pakistan — was an invitation to the catastrophe. The illegal construction took off in a big way, allegedly with the patronage of politicians and the Jammu Municipal Corporation, Jammu Development Authority and Housing Board.

The land along a bridge on the Tawi, a portion of which was washed away, had become a haven for unauthorised developers. Houses and shopping complexes had come up on the river bank. Similar was the situation on the banks of the mighty Chenab, which flows through Akhnoor, 25 km from Jammu, before entering Pakistan. Village residents had taken over the flood-prone land for agricultural purposes.

In 2011, major rainfall had damaged the Circular Road after landslides damaged it in several stretches. At that time, the administration had announced that it would take preventive steps and come down heavily on unauthorised houses, but nothing concrete was undertaken.

Encroachment took place in a planned manner under the very nose of the administration and officials of the Jammu Development Authority (JDA). The JDA is already fighting a losing battle to retrieve its land from encroachers and so far, only 1,721 kanal of land has been recovered. Thousands of kanals are still under illegal possession.

In the twin border districts of Rajouri and Poonch, which saw massive destruction of public property along the rivulets and water bodies, the land mafia has encroached upon the banks.

Jammu region Martyr mauled: People walk past the statue of a soldier on the outskirts of Jammu. The armed forces have practically been the sole saviour in the rescue effort. Tribune Photo: Inderjeet Singh Death toll 153 No. of people rescued 23,000 Relief camps 83 Livestock perished 2,500 Worst-hit dists Poonch, Rajouri, Reasi and Udhampur Losses in Poonch, Rajouri Rs 1,000cr Houses damaged Total 20,000 Reasi dist 200 Udhampur dist over 1,000 Villages hit Rajouri 358 Jammu dist 80 Reasi dist 203 Kathua dist 61 Blocked The 300-km Jammu-Srinagar National Highway Flood protection works Poonch dist: Works on the Suran rivulet damaged, as also the approach to the main Poonch bridge Jammu: Projects along the Chenab, Tawi damaged Kathua: Massive devastation along the Bhini rivulet Major bridges hit Poonch-Chakan-da-Bagh Poonch-Kalai road Rajouri-Budhal-Mahore-Reasi road Trail of destruction in Srinagar Death toll: over 200 status of Localities Shiv Pora Inundated Population: Over 20,000 Housed: Shiv Pora was home to the Police Officers Mess and residence of the PDP MP, Tariq Hamid Karra, among others Rescue operation: Most people were either shifted to safe places or rescued; but it is not clear how many are still trapped as rescue teams are struggling to reach them Toll: Unknown Raj Bagh Most casualties here Population: 40,000 Housed: Hotels, government employees, and the headquarters of various separatist groups, including Hurriyat Conference, situated here Toll: Unknown Jawahar Nagar Submerged Housed: Government employees; private buildings Population: Over 50,000 Damage: Some houses have collapsed, others badly damaged Toll: Unknown Indira Nagar Submerged Population: 5,000 Housed: The locality mostly housed government officials and a large number of Kashmiri Pandits Rescue operation: The rescue teams have been successful in evacuating a majority of people Toll: Unknown Bemina Flooded Housed: Mix of rich and poor; Islamic Centre; automobile showrooms Damage: Many houses damaged Toll: Unknown

Choking wetlands

A long way home. AFP

State government officials admit that 50 per cent lakes, ponds and the wetlands in Srinagar, the winter capital of J&K, have been converted into residential and commercial places. Encroachment started in the late 1960s, when new colonies were established on fertile agricultural fields and marshes at Shivpora, Indira Nagar, Sanat Nagar, Rawal Pora and several other areas that have now been inundated.

Scientists have been warning for long that drainage channels of the city were blocked due to the construction of new colonies and the link between the lakes had been cut off because of unplanned urbanisation. Therefore, the lakes could not absorb water the way they would a century ago, saving the city from floods.

“The wetlands and lakes act as sponge during floods, but now residential colonies have been constructed on them. The recent floods have exposed the need for saving wetlands in Kashmir,” says Bushan Parimoo, an environmentalist.

Jhelum

The banks of the 165-km Jhelum river — also called Vitasta — have also been taken over in a similar manner, vastly reducing the river's drainage capacity, leaving little space for the waters to move.

Construction of illegal structures, including houses, continue on the banks of the river near Khanabal bridge in Anantnag, Guru, Bijbehara, Sangam, Halmula, Kakpora, Samboora, Padhgampura and Pantha Chowk and move down towards the Srinagar city till the river merges with the Wular Lake in Bandipora district.

Notwithstanding the Water Resources Regulation Act providing executive powers to the authorities to act against offenders, not much has been done to stop illegal construction. The banks have been turned into a junkyard, illegal structures have come up and thousands of trees have been planted even as the Jhelum shrinks.

Dal Lake

The catchment area of the lake is 314 sq km, of which 148 sq km has been identified as prone to soil erosion. The open area of the lake has been reduced to 12 sq km from 24 sq km and its average depth is down to 3 metres due to the silt.

Vegetable growers have encroached into the lake, often planting trees while trying to attract tourists. Multi-storeyed buildings and small crafts factories have been set up on illegal landfills created by the land mafia. Hence, the lake’s ability to naturally drain out the flood waters has greatly suffered.

In July 2013, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah had directed the Lakes and Waterways Development Authority — a separate agency working to save the lake — to clear the encroachments, houses and floating gardens. The work is going on in the Ranawari area of the lake.

Wular Lake

Despite a two-decade conservation project and crores of rupees being pumped to save Wular, Asia’s largest freshwater lake, in Bandipora district, it has shrunk by 87.58 sq km in the last century. The lake (also called Mahapadamsar) finds mention in the ancient Nilamata Purana.

From 217.58 sq km in 1911, when the first major survey was conducted by Dogra rulers, the lake area reduced to 130 sq km in 2011-12 during a demarcation by the revenue department. A large part of the catchment area has been converted into farm land. Pollution from fertilisers, animal waste, hunting of migratory birds and weed infestation is killing the lake.

As per a survey by the state government, the lake has shrunk mainly due to encroachment, inflow of sewage, silt and poor policies of successive governments, despite the lake being recognised as a wetland of national importance in 1986.

The Rs 120-crore project initiated in 2010 to save the lake is progressing slowly. “The lake acts as a huge absorption basin for the annual floodwaters, maintaining a balance in the hydrographic system of the Valley, but now it has become a dumping site for filth,” says Nadeem Qadri, an environmentalist.

Cut-off villages can’t be reached

While the battle is on against time to save lakhs of people marooned in Srinagar city, rescue teams have failed to reach several cut-off villages in the 10 districts of the Jammu region even after nine days of the calamity. The ravaged districts include Poonch, Rajouri, Reasi and Udhampur, where landslides have destroyed houses built on hillocks.

Though the official death toll is 153 in the region, it could rise when rescuers begin to scan devastated remote hamlets in the mountainous areas. On September 4, the Army launched Operation Megh Rahat, but the snapping of communication lines hindered the operation.

The worst hit was Poonch district, where it will take time to assess the actual damage as all road links have been severed.

“We have rescued and shifted 23,000 people to safer places and 83 relief camps have been set up to accommodate them. All relief and rehabilitation measures are being carried out on a war footing to save people from further loss. Vital services like power supply and road connectivity are being restored,” says Shantmanu, Jammu Divisional Commissioner.

Major road connectivity in the state has been disrupted as landslides at many places have blocked the 300-km National Highway from Jammu to Srinagar. Bridges, culverts, and other installations along the highway have been damaged

The Chief Engineer of the Border Road Organisation, Brig Biswajit Bhatacharya, says the highway has been destroyed in the strategic border township of Poonch and Rajouri and losses could cross Rs 1,000 crore.

— Sumit Hakhoo