The Rising Flashflood in Hilly States and the Human Greed

It began with a low roar in the mountains, the kind that sends people scurrying to their doorways. Within minutes, a wall of water, rock and timber was tearing through Dharali, sweeping away homes, shops and hotels pressed against the river’s edge. By the time it was over, much of the village lay in ruins, at least four were dead, dozens were missing, and more than 100 buildings had vanished into the torrent.

Eye-witness accounts, expert voices and official records point to a disaster long in the making. This was no freak act of nature but the foreseeable — and avoidable — result of years of deforestation, unregulated construction and official indifference. A naked pursuit of profits. Along the banks of Uttarakhand’s rivers, a concrete jungle of hotels has replaced the forest cover that once absorbed monsoon rain. Safeguards meant to protect fragile Himalayan slopes have long been wantonly sacrificed on the altar of greed, despite mounting warnings of such a calamity.

Across Uttarakhand and other hill states, decades of forest loss have stripped slopes of their ability to hold water or soil, turning heavy rain into mass-casualty events. Eco-sensitive zones have been breached in the name of development, hydropower projects have blasted through hillsides, and tree-felling has been dressed up as progress. The pattern is national, the costs swelling. The question now is not whether the next cloudburst will come, but how many more lives will be lost before the country stops dismantling its own natural defences. 

A fragile shield stripped away

The central Himalayas are among the most fragile mountain systems on earth. Formed by the collision of tectonic plates and still rising at an average of 5mm a year, the slopes are geologically young and inherently unstable. Their resilience depends on deep-rooted forests that bind soil, regulate water flows, and recharge springs. Remove that cover and the slopes lose their anchor.

“We have been warning for years that interventions in the Himalayas would compromise the natural drainage patterns, reduce the vegetative cover over time and destabilise the slopes. This is also because the river's own flood mitigation mechanisms or natural buffers such as sediment spread zones, riparian vegetation and meanders have been constricted or totally removed,” says, Aparna Roy, fellow and lead, climate change and energy, Centre for New Economic Diplomacy, Observer Research Foundation.

Between 2001 and 2023, Uttarakhand lost an estimated 24,000 hectares of forest cover, according to satellite data analysed by the Forest Survey of India (FSI). In Uttarkashi district alone, the loss of moderately dense forest since 2013 exceeds 2,000 hectares. The Bhagirathi Eco Sensitive Zone (ESZ)— carved out after the 2013 Kedarnath floods to protect the upper Ganga basin — was meant to halt this attrition. Instead, exemptions have multiplied, environmental impact assessments have been diluted, and violations have gone largely unpunished.

This erosion of safeguards is visible in repeated violations. Last year, Mallika Bhanot, a member of the Bhagirathi ESZ monitoring committee, together with other independent members, reported that multi-storey hotels in Maneri and Jamak, near Uttarkashi town, were violating ESZ norms and compromising the region’s safety, according to The Indian Express.

“Clearances are sometimes granted based on outdated or incomplete environmental assessments, and penalties for violations are often too lenient to act as deterrents,” says Anjal Prakash, clinical associate professor and research director, Bharti Institute of Public Policy, Indian School of Business. “Corruption and political pressures further undermine strict enforcement,” he adds.

Greed dressed up as development

The erosion of natural buffers is the product of a business model that treats the Himalayas as prime real estate. Tourism is the biggest driver. State records show that the number of visitors to Uttarakhand surged from 19.45 million in 2013 to over 45 million in 2022. In Uttarkashi, the number of registered hotels has more than doubled in a decade; unregistered establishments vastly outnumber legal ones. A river-view plot yields far higher returns than upland farms; an incentive that blinds both environmental caution and common sense.

The hotel strip in Dharali is a textbook example. Many buildings rise right on the riverbank, their foundations encased in concrete embankments that “containerise” the river. Forced through narrowed channels, the gushing water gathers speed and power, ravaging everything in its path.

With tourism growing unchecked, the stress on fragile ecosystems has reached alarming levels. Rivers, forests, and slopes are being reshaped to accommodate inflows that far exceed the ecosystem’s natural carrying capacity. Some experts argue that rather than merely regulating construction, policymakers must control footfall. One option gaining attention is tourist quotas.

“Tourism will have to be controlled in every part of the Himalayas, especially religious tourism,” Chandra Bhushan, CEO of iFOREST says.

Is it time to introduce tourist quotas in hill states to contain natural disasters?

The idea may sound radical, but with each visitation of a Himalayan disaster, that question grows more urgent. Any viable package of reforms will need to consider not just ecological restoration but also demand management — limiting human footprint in ecosystems that are overwhelmed. However, some experts caution that quotas are not a silver bullet.

Prakash says, “Tourist quotas have been successful in some hill regions to prevent over-tourism and ecological degradation but haven’t solved the problem. Instead of strict caps, a comprehensive solution involves sustainable tourism planning, strict regulation of construction and eco-sensitive infrastructure development clearly marking critical climatic zones and restricting movement critical seasons such as monsoon.”

Hydropower is the other pillar of this economy. Uttarakhand has over 100 operational or under-construction hydropower projects. In theory, these generate clean energy; in practice, their tunnelling and blasting destabilise slopes, while roadbuilding to service them accelerates deforestation. In valleys like Bhagirathi and Alaknanda, multiple projects are stacked within a few kilometres, compounding the ecological stress.

What makes this dangerous is not the absence of laws but their selective enforcement. Local panchayats approve commercial buildings without environmental assessments. District officials permit the conversion of agricultural plots into hotel sites. State agencies issue clearances in defiance of eco-sensitive zone rules. National Green Tribunal orders on riverbed construction are routinely flouted.

“There has to be a political will to implement stricter norms and to ensure that environmental risks are mainstreamed into the development process. If there was seriousness about the environmental assessment, many of these infrastructure projects wouldn't have been implemented. Many of the environment-related procedures are kept as a secondary requirement in the applications,” says Roy.

This laxity is often wanton and greased by political patronage. Many of the riverside hotels in Uttarkashi are owned by individuals with direct or indirect links to local power brokers. Hydropower concessions often go to politically connected firms. Activists who challenge such projects face harassment, while whistle-blowers risk career stagnation or transfers.

Learning nothing from disaster

The indifference is not new. The 2013 Kedarnath disaster, triggered by cloudbursts and glacial lake outbursts, killed over 6,000 people. The official inquiry identified unregulated construction, deforestation, and encroachment on floodplains as key factors — and recommended strict building controls in high-risk zones.

In 2021, a glacier burst in Chamoli triggered flash floods that killed more than 200 in a valley dense with hydropower projects. In 2024, landslides in Kerala’s Wayanad district, worsened by decades of plantation driven deforestation, killed over 400. In each case, the same promises were made — and the same violations resumed once the headlines faded.

The mounting cost

The cost is not limited to immediate casualties. Deforestation and slope destabilisation increase siltation in rivers, reducing the capacity of downstream reservoirs and heightening flood risk in the plains. The loss of riparian vegetation degrades water quality, affecting both human use and aquatic biodiversity. Springs that feed villages dry up when recharge zones are stripped. Landslides triggered by road-cutting block highways and sever supply lines, increasing disaster response times.

Prakash says, “Disasters like cloudbursts and floods threaten water security by contaminating or disrupting supply from rivers and groundwater sources, affecting domestic, agricultural and industrial uses. Agriculture suffers due to soil erosion, loss of crops and destruction of irrigation systems, reducing resilience to future shocks. Ecological stability of downstream plains is also compromised as floodwaters carry debris, pollutants and sediments, damaging wetlands, forests, and biodiversity.”

The World Bank estimated the damages from the 2013 Uttarakhand floods at $3.8 billion. The economic losses from the Chamoli disaster exceeded ₹2,000 crore. In both cases, much of the cost was borne by ordinary citizens — through lost livelihoods, destroyed homes, and the absence of insurance cover in high-risk zones.

Climate change is amplifying every one of these risks. IMD data show that “very heavy” rainfall events in the central Himalayas have risen by over 50% in the past 20 years. The Geological Survey of India reports consistent glacier retreat, increasing meltwater volumes during the monsoon. The combination of intense rain, rapid runoff from deforested slopes, and narrowed floodplains creates a lethal chain reaction.

The national pattern

What happened in Dharali mirrors trends across India’s hilly states. In Himachal Pradesh, road-widening for the Char Dham project has triggered landslides along multiple stretches. In Sikkim, resorts have been built on reclaimed wetlands, undermining their flood-buffer role. In Arunachal Pradesh, quarries operate beyond permitted limits, destabilising riverbanks. Each case shares the same ingredients: fragile ecology, profit-driven encroachment, weakened oversight, and political cover.

In Dharali, rescue teams are still pulling bodies from the debris and searching for the missing. The scars are fresh, the wreckage frightening. Yet if the pattern of the past is any guide, the trees will keep falling, the resorts will keep rising, and without a decisive break from the vicious cycle of greed, neglect and impunity, the next cloudburst will inevitably strike — only the outcome may be far worse.

The Himalayas are not an inexhaustible asset. Their ability to absorb abuse is finite. Every hectare of forest lost, every metre of riverbank built over, narrows the margin for survival. If the August 5th disaster has a lesson, it is that prevention is not optional — it is the only rational choice. The question is not whether the next low roar will come, but whether we will still be pretending to be surprised when it does.