Thousands of wooden logs spotted in swollen Ravi at Chamba.
Kirtpur-Manali witnesses frequent rockfalls from sliced mountains.
Chamba, Manali, Mandi, Kangra, Lahaul worst hit by calamities.
Scary sights of multi-storey buildings tumbling on unstable slopes, floating trails of wooden logs in the Ravi at Chamba, exposing mass forest felling upstream, massive boulders crashing down from vertically cut scarred mountains, and vast stretches of roads vanishing into hills. These are just some of the scenes along the Kiratpur-Manali four-lane highway in Himachal Pradesh as the monsoon triggers disaster after disaster in its wake.
From Chamba, the epicenter of monsoon-triggered—yet largely man-made—disasters, to Manali, Himachal Pradesh is reeling under unprecedented heart-wrenching losses. The disaster stuck zones span from the ecologically fragile Lahaul-Spiti and Kinnaur regions to Mandi and Kangra in the lower reaches. More than 820 roads are blocked, National Highways and four-lane highways are partially or fully disrupted, water supply schemes are non-functional if not washed away, and many towns have become inaccessible, including Kullu, Manali and Keylong. Communication services, including mobile and internet, are also disrupted.
Around 320 lives are lost, and property worth hundreds of crores is damaged after the outbreak of the monsoon. Nature seems to be at its worst, dealing a blow not only to the fragile Himalayas but also to the state’s debt-ridden economy. The fury and landslides have damaged infrastructure, displaced families, disrupted connectivity, destroyed roads and swept away bridges.
“The scale of destruction this time is much higher than the 2023 calamities. The earthquake has profoundly shaken Himachal Pradesh. We must dig deep into the reasons for the frequency of disasters and tackle the problem effectively to save lives,” said Chief Minister Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu after reaching Chamba on Saturday.
Sukhu said global warming and climate change are major factors behind the unfolding disasters and reassured that a study would be conducted to assess the reasons behind frequent cloudbursts, landslides and floods. Monsoon tragedies are not new to the state, but their scale and gravity are the biggest worry and challenge.
What the public experienced in Chamba after relentless rains triggered massive floods in the Ravi have made it evident that disasters attributable to climate change are the result of human activities that have disturbed the fragile ecological balance of the Himalayan mountains and valleys.
Visuals of large wooden logs floating in the flooded Ravi have raised concerns about how long the mountains will survive after the forests have been systematically cut off, making the hills prone to landslides. The forest mafia has for long been known to be active in the region, wiping out the forest wealth and inviting disasters. For hours, the Ravi River looked choked with wood, obviously extracted illegally from the forests.
In the past, the Kullu and Mandi districts have witnessed similar scenes.
“It’s not only the work of the forest mafia; forests have been cut down for the expansion and construction of roads and National Highways. "It is the government itself that is acting like the real mafia,” wrote a social media user posting a viral video of the floating timber.
Another wrote, “These are not just pieces of timber; these are symbols of greed-driven destruction, almost endorsing what the Supreme Court had observed on growing ecological balance in the state."
In early August this year, the Supreme Court issued a strong warning to the state that the entire Himachal Pradesh area would vanish in thin air if the current trend of ecological damage and unchecked development continues.
The court drew attention of state and central agencies to a serious environmental crisis, including unstable slopes, deforestation, inadequate waste management and the impact of unplanned tourism and hydropower projects. The court directed the state and central governments to submit action plans to address the deteriorating ecological balance, emphasising that revenue generation cannot come at the cost of the environment.
“A severe imbalance...due to human activities [is] leading to frequent and devastating natural disasters. Poorly regulated infrastructure development, including highway construction, is destabilising slopes and causing environmental harm,” the court noted.
“Uncontrolled growth in tourism puts immense strain on the environment, causing waste, pollution, and encroachment into sensitive areas,” the court said, further pointing to hydropower projects contributing to ecological damage and the vanishing of aquatic life.
In its reply to the Supreme Court, the state government attributed the recent devastations—cloudbursts, intense rainfall, altered snowfall patterns, and retreating glaciers—to the undeniable global phenomenon of climate change
“Himachal Pradesh, despite maintaining the highest legally classified forest area of about 68 per cent, a significant forest cover of about 28 per cent dedicating about 15 per cent of its forest area to the Protected Area Network, against the national average of approximately 5 per cent, and eco-conscious policies, remains a victim of these climate-induced extreme events,” it said.
For years, Himachal’s forests have faced relentless pressure from development, hydropower projects, tourism, and the expanding apple economy. Acres of forest land were cleared for orchards, followed by further loss of green cover to highways, four-lane expansions, dams, and tourism infrastructure.
Mindless economic growth, driving the development trajectories of the Himalayan region, has overlooked the climate risks. Scientists have consistently cautioned state governments of this, but now the Supreme Court has highlighted the warning signs that environmentalists and activists have been raising for a long time, says Manshi Asher, an environmental justice activist and researcher.
Whether it is the timber mafia or the mining mafia in Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, and Uttarakhand, the story remains the same. The Himalayas have suffered a deep wound, and they are bleeding.
Six-time MLA and former minister Asha Kumari, from Dalhousie town in Chamba admits that forest felling is rampant across the state, and Chamba is no exception. She also admits that the high-magnitude disasters in the state are largely man-made.
The calamities in Chamba make it clear: the Ravi, ravaging Himachal and Punjab, is sounding a dire warning. Forests are priceless; they must be protected and preserved.
“Stop scarring our Himalayas in the name of development” is the new slogan catching on in Himachal Pradesh.
