Ever thought of tunnels as more than just passages? Well, I did, after the recent #UttarakhandTunnelCollapse. I visited areas being tunnelled for dams, roads & railways in Uttarakhand and wrote this article for @third_pole. Do read & see 🧵.
thethirdpole.net/en/climate/as-… The November 2023 tunnel collapse wasn’t the only tunnelling incident in Uttarakhand. In Feb 2021, ~37 workers died in tunnels of a hydropower project in Chamoli. In Aug 2023, 114 workers were rescued after they got trapped in an under-construction tunnel following extreme rains.

After #SilkyaraTunnel rescue, it's perhaps time for reflection. I dig into the 825 km mega road project of which Silkyara tunnel is a part. With illegalities, deaths & destruction, the story is far from over. Do read my article in @thewire_in + see thread.
thewire.in/environment/si… The 825-km-long project in Uttarakhand did not undergo an environmental impact assessment. In 2019, Supreme Court appointed a committee – High Powered Committee (HPC) – to review the project & recommend whether EIA should be done. Then there was politics – lots & lots of it.

Houses being damaged in #Joshimath is a mix of geological & anthropogenic factors. In an article for @the_hindu, I try to simplify the science behind the factors leading to the damage. Article link: thehindu.com/sci-tech/scien…
A🧵on what we don't know about the Joshimath issue, yet: 1. ISRO published data that showed 5.4 cm “subsidence” b/w 27 Dec 2022 & 8 Jan 2023.
2. A recent report uses terms like "gravitational instability" and "displacement", for Joshimath: discuss.terradue.com/t/results-of-a…
3. @davepetley calls it a “landslide crisis”: blogs.agu.org/landslideblog/

#Joshimath⚖️
In Feb 2021 flood, 192 people died at dam sites near Joshimath; locals approached Uttarakhand HC. CJ Raghvendra Chauhan & Justice Alok Verma gave a judgment calling petitioners “puppets” & imposing Rs 50,000 fine. My old report in @thewire_in.
thewire.in/environment/ut… Petition was dismissed in the 1st hearing itself. Judges said that the petitioners “claim” to be social activists without any proof of identity.
Well, 2 petitioners (including @atulsati1) were from Joshimath Bachao Sangharsh Samiti which is leading current protests in Joshimath.

Noticed these posters across the Joshimath market, yesterday. Now, it's the people of Joshimath versus the NTPC whose 520 MW Tapovan Vishnugad project has allegedly damaged the town.
Here’s a thread on examples of slide & sinking caused by dam projects in areas near Joshimath: Chaaen/Chãyeen village, ~15 km from Joshimath, experienced land sinking after water from JPVL’s 400 MW Vishnuprayag dam's tunnel began leaking in 2007. I saw houses cracked due to sinking land. See snippet from an op-ed I wrote for @the_hindu in 2014. Link:thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/…

Thus spake NTPC, absolving itself of all the destruction it has caused in and around Joshimath. Please see this thread to understand a dam company's role in destroying the area, and how the govt too is involved in pushing for disastrous projects. The geological survey for NTPC's Tapovan Vishnugad dam was done by a private company. The survey was merely meant to push for the project despite the pre-existing scientific reports cautioning against overburdening the region.

At least 50,000 residents of Banbhoolpura in Haldwani, Uttarakhand, may be rendered homeless after Jan 7. The only hope for them is the SC hearing scheduled for Jan 5, i.e. tomorrow. A detailed thread:

(Photos by Sartaj Alam: Residents assemble against eviction orders) The area to be vacated falls under 5 wards in Banbhoolpura. Here’s a map (courtesy Tasleem Ansari) with the red line roughly showing the 78 acres to be vacated. To give you an idea, the population to be evicted is almost the same as the entire population of my own town, Nainital.

The most amazing classroom I've ever entered is in the Govt Inter College (GIC) in Dudhli village, near Dehradun. It's a mathematics lab, and the #teacher who envisioned this is Jagdamba Prasad Dobhal. People in Dudhli choose GIC over private schools. It's not hard to think why. The first time I entered this lab, I saw students with spherical stones. Mr Dobhal had taught them about the 'sphere' and had asked them to fetch stones of that shape from the nearby jungle. In the stones, the 2D circle had suddenly jumped out of the paper and had come alive.

#Uttarakhand_Disaster
I would urge everyone to not look at this sans dams. It is definitely a dam-related disaster for the following main reasons:
1) Chopra Committee report, which analysed the 2013 Kedarnath disaster, mentioned how damaged dams cause further damage downstream. contd...
This is because the debris from the damaged dams, increases the force of the flood waters. This means flood water, mixed with debris is absolutely disastrous for downstream areas.

An imp input on #Uttarakhand_Disaster
Spoke to D P Dobhal, former glaciologist at Dehradun's Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology. He said:
-Lake formation happened for sure, which eventually breached today and caused the floods. Dobhal contd:
-There could be a few possibilities of how the lake was formed:
1) the heavy sediments in the flood waters show that an avalanche could have happened, which would've have dammed the river waters. Glacier debris could also have added to the damming.