Pune landslide, Uttarakhand’s cloudbrust: Natural disaster or man-made tragedy?

Two successive natural disasters, one in Pune and second in Uttarakhand has killed over 30 people and left many more injured. According to report, around 200 people are still buried after a massive landslide hit a Pune village on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Tehri district of Uttarakhand also faced nature's fury where three persons were killed in cloudburst. These landslides are the bitter reminder of last year's Uttarakhand disaster.

Uttarakhand faced nature's fury in 2013
In June, 2013 nature had unleashed its wrath in Kedarnath, Haridwar and some of the other districts of Uttarakhand killing around 10, 000 people. Within no moment, the land of God (Kedarnath) had turned into the town of ghost. More than 1000 roads, 90 bridges were washed away in the monsoon mayhem in Dev Bhoomi. Even, the holy shrine of Kedarnath barely survived, it was buried deep in mud.
But question is who is responsible for such catastrophe, which almost comes every year and take thousands of people in their grip.

Unplanned development and rampant destruction of forests
Though it is called natural disaster but truth is that the colossal greed of politicians and bureaucrats are somewhere responsible for such disaster. According to the experts, unplanned development and rampant destruction of forests is the some of the main reasons behind the nature's fury. Then, unabated construction of hydro-electric (hydel) power projects, roads, hotels have also compounded the problem and made these States prone to such disaster. "When you change the course of a river by mining, cutting of trees indiscriminately and building roads in a haphazard manner, such a calamity is bound to take place," said PP Dayani, director of the GB Pant Institute of Himalayan Environment and Development.
The nature has their own capacity to recover and rejuvenate, and humans should not challenge it. And if that is being done then destruction of human lives is sure.

Why Uttarakhand prone for such disasters?
Report says, that there is no polices, guidelines, rules and regulations in place to deal with such a catastrophe in the State. State Disaster Management System which was formed in 2007 have not met even once since then. It is really surprising and agonising that a State like Uttarakhand, which had witnessed two earthquakes in 1996 in Uttarkashi and 1998 in Chamoli respectively, has no such system in place to prevent such a calamity. Unauthorised construction of hydel projects, unscientifically built dams and roads has really worsened the situation in the State.

Accountability must be fixed
It's high time Modi Government should take the cognisance of the issue and establish proper system for dealing with such disasters. Accountablity must be fixed and if someone shirks away from that they must face the music. Government should send out message loud and clear that one can't play with the lives of common men under the name of the development.