Mountain and Machine

What should worry Himachal, and neighboring Uttarakhand is that the States may be entering a phase of irreversible decline because of losses to their ecology; frequent landslides may become inevitable. Bootstrapping an incompatible model of development in the hills, represented by big hydroelectric projects and large-scale construction activity involving the destruction of forests and damming of rivers, is an invitation to harm.

While cloudbursts and flash floods in recent years have become a regular feature in the hill state of Himachal Pradesh, the loss of life caused by

natural calamities can be mainly attributed to the increasing human interference, particularly in eco-sensitive Himalayan zones.

Experts Explained that since mountains in Himachal Pradesh are part of the Himalayan range that are young and fragile in nature, creating cracks

and fractures in the rock could widen in the future and create a rockfall or slope failure zone—a phenomenon in which a slope

collapses abruptly under the influence of rainfall or an earthquake.

They say anthropological intervention along with climate change has worsened it further. Be it the development of hydropower projects or tunnels

or roads. Higher Himalayas, both climatically and tectonically, are highly sensitive, so much so, that at the first stance the

construction of mega hydro-projects should be avoided.