Top advocacy group South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP) has described the debris-laden flash flood that struck Dharali on August 5 as a catastrophe whose scale was amplified by human actions and governance failures. It has urged an independent assessment once rescue and relief work is over.
According to SANDRP, the sudden flood hit Dharali — at the confluence of Kheer Gad and the Bhagirathi river, about 20 km below Gangotri — around 1:30 pm on Tuesday, August 5. Over 40 buildings were demolished, scores were reported missing, including nine army jawans, and at least five people were confirmed dead. Ground zero remained largely inaccessible four days later.
A 500-metre-wide stretch of land was buried under debris and sludge, with mounds up to 50 feet high. Drone teams were deployed upstream to check for new lakes or ponds. SANDRP noted that clearing the debris could take months. So much sediment entered the Bhagirathi that it partially blocked the river downstream, which the Central Water Commission confirmed after SANDRP’s tweets.
In a detailed analysis of the disaster in its website, SANDRP says the exact trigger is still unclear but presents several scientific hypotheses. IMD rainfall figures for Uttarkashi — 16 mm and 32.2 mm on August 5 and 6 — show no heavy rain to support claims of a local cloudburst. Experts have suggested possible causes including glacial lake overflows, slope failures in morainic deposits, or small pond bursts in steep upper reaches.
Noida-based Suhora Technologies, using ICEYE SAR satellite imagery, reported no large upstream lakes but said rainfall may have been a trigger, with data gaps remaining. Bhutan-based hydropower expert Imran Khan identified 360 million cubic metres of perched glacial sediment that may have failed, generating the debris flow. Landslide expert Dave Petley found this credible and warned of future risks.
SANDRP criticised early official claims of multiple cloudbursts, saying IMD data disproves such events at Dharali, Harshil, or nearby areas. It recalled a similar misjudgment after the October 2023 South Lhonak lake disaster in Sikkim, when a cloudburst was wrongly cited before the Teesta-3 dam washed away.
The group says human activity amplified the disaster’s impact. Hotels, homes, and markets were built in the floodplain and in Kheer Gad’s historic channels. After a 2013 event reactivated an old course, construction still continued. An RCC wall built to “contain” the stream after 2013 was ill-suited for Himalayan rivers carrying boulders and debris.
Dr Navin Juyal, in a video cited by SANDRP, warned that widening the highway here could require cutting up to 6,000 deodar trees, calling it “an invitation to more disasters” and recommending elevated corridors instead. Although the Bhagirathi valley was declared an eco-sensitive zone in 2012, SANDRP says enforcement has been lax.
The group also notes the paradox of army personnel being among the missing, suggesting the army review where it places its facilities. It points to a history of disasters in the region — from 1930s shrine submergence to the 1978 Kanodia Gad landslide lake outburst, the 1991 Uttarkashi earthquake, the 2012 Asi Ganga floods, and the 2013 disaster that also hit Dharali.
SANDRP concludes that the tragedy is a wake-up call for halting unplanned construction in ecologically sensitive Himalayan zones. It calls for strict enforcement of environmental laws, avoiding hydropower projects in para-glacial and flood-prone zones, carrying-capacity studies for Himalayan towns, and using elevated corridors instead of clearing forest belts. It also urges better monitoring of glacial ponds, morainic deposits, and valley-blocking hazards, along with stronger early-warning systems and rescue safety protocols.
“Let us hope our governance wakes up sooner rather than later,” SANDRP says, warning that without change, such disasters will keep recurring along fragile river corridors.
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