National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) Archives - Lokmarg

SC Declines Urgent Hearing On Joshimath Subsidence

By LokMarg 10th January 2023

Everything important in the country can’t come to Supreme Court, said the top court on Tuesday as it declined an urgent hearing of the plea relating to the Joshimath sinking incident.

A bench of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and PS Narasimha said there are democratically elected institutions to look into the issue, as it posted the hearing for January 16.
“Everything which is important need not come to the apex court. There are democratically elected institutions working on it,” the top court said.

The court said this after the lawyer appearing for the petitioner mentioned the matter for an urgent hearing.

Earlier on Monday, the Supreme Court asked an advocate to mention on Tuesday a plea seeking immediate intervention by the top court to assist the reparation and providing of urgent relief to people of Joshimath in Uttarakhand, who are living in fear in the wake of a landslide and subsidence.

The plea was filed by Swami Avimukteshwaranand Saraswati, a religious leader, seeking a direction to declare the current incidents of landslide, subsidence, land sinking, land burst, and cracks in the land and properties as a national disaster and direct the National Disaster Management Authority to support the residents of Joshimath at this time.

Several families were evacuated from Joshimath after cracks appeared in their houses in the wake of the subsidence.

The petition sought to provide immediate financial assistance and compensation to the people of Uttarakhand, who have lost their houses and land to subsidence.

“In the name of and/or for the cause of development the respondents have no right to push the people in the mouth of death and the religious sacred town in extinction and thereby infringe the fundamental right of the people of the Joshimath including the petitioner as well as inmates of his Monastery guaranteed under article 21, 25 and 26 of the Constitution of India,” it stated.

The entire mess of environmental, ecological, and geological disturbances occurred due to large-scale manly intervention in the form of Industrialisation, urbanization, and destruction of natural resources by the Union and State government in the State of Uttarakhand, the petition stated further.

It added, “No development is needed at the cost of human life and their ecosystem and if anything such is happening it is the duty of the State and Union government to stop the same immediately at war level.”

The petition was filed to “secure the life and personal liberty of the people of Joshimath town in the Chamoli District of Uttarakhand, wherein the life of the people is lurching large due to imminent and sudden cases of land subsidence, land sliding, the sudden eruption of water, cracking of houses and subsidence and cracking of agriculture plots resulted on account of man-made activities which given rise to recurrent natural calamities which were earlier very rare”.

“Issue direction to the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) to provide insurance coverage to the residents of Joshimath and to duly compensate the affected residents for the disaster caused by land sliding, land sinking, land burst, subsidence resulting into the cracking of houses and lands,” it added.

It also sought direction from the SC to the NTPC and Border Road Organisation (BRO) to rehabilitate the affected citizens at safer and more convenient places.

“Direct Centre, National Disaster Management Authority, Uttarakhand to take effective and proactive steps to protect the spiritual and religious and cultural places of Hindus including Sikhs at Joshimath; especially the Jyotirmath and adjoining sacred shrines/temples wherein deities are being worshipped since time immemorial,” the plea read.

“Direct the respondents to immediately stop construction and building work of the Tapovan Vishnugad Hydro Electric, Project tunnel and not to begin again till the high-level committee of geologists, hydrologists and engineers constituted by this court,” it added. (ANI)

Joshimath: No Development At The Cost Of Human Life, Plea Seeks SC Intervention

By LokMarg 7th January 2023

A plea has been filed in the Supreme Court to immediately intervene to assist the reparation work of Uttarakhand and to provide urgent relief to the people of Joshimath facing extremities and danger to their life and property.

The plea filed by Swami Avimukteshwaranand Saraswati, a religious leader, seeks direction to declare the current incidents of land sliding, subsidence, land sinking, land burst, and cracks in the land and properties as National disaster and direct the National Disaster Management Authority to actively support the residents of Joshimath in this tough time.
The petition seeks to provide immediate financial assistance and compensation to the people of Uttarakhand losing their houses and lands on account of land sliding, land sinking, subsidence, and cracking of houses and properties.

It further said, “No development is needed at the cost of human life and their ecosystem and if anything such is happening it is the duty of the State and Union government to stop the same immediately at war level.”

It said the petition was filed to secure the life and personal liberty of the people of Joshimath town in the Chamoli District of Uttarakhand, wherein the life of the people is lurching large due to imminent and sudden cases of land subsidence, land sliding, the sudden eruption of water, cracking of houses and subsidence and cracking of agriculture plots resulted on account of man-made activities which given rise to recurrent natural calamities which were earlier very rare.

“Issue direction to the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) to provide insurance coverage to the residents of Joshimath and to duly compensate the affected residents from the disaster caused by land sliding, land sinking, land burst, subsidence resulting into cracking of houses and lands,” it said.

Direct NTPC and Border Road Organisation (BRO) to rehabilitate the affected citizens of Joshimath at safer and suitable places convenient to them, it added.

Direct Centre, National Disaster Management Authority, Uttarakhand to take effective and proactive steps to protect the spiritual and religious and cultural places of Hindus including Sikhs at Joshimath; especially the Jyotirmath and adjoining sacred shrines/temples wherein deities are being worshipped since time immemorial, it urged the court.

“Direct the respondents to immediately stop construction and building work of the Tapovan Vishnugad Hydro Electric, Project tunnel and not to begin again till the high-level committee of geologists, hydrologists, and engineers constituted by this court,” it added. (ANI)

Pak Floods Puts Education Of 3.5 MN Children In Jeopardy: UN

By LokMarg 11th September 2022

Following the visit of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to Pakistan to extend support to flood victims, the United Nations released a report on Friday and said that the natural disaster had interrupted the education of nearly 3.5 million children in the country.

Th UN report further stated that floods have also added to the miseries of refugees as nearly 800,000 refugees live in districts officially notified as ‘calamity hit’ in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, turkey-based media Anadolu agency reported citing the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
In Sindh alone, According to the report, over 1.2 million hectares of agricultural land have been damaged in Sindh whereas over 1.5 million houses have been destroyed by flood waters, the report said.

The report also added that 1,460 health facilities were affected by the heavy rains and floods, reported Anadolu agency.

As per the country’s National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), the devastating floods in Pakistan killed 1,391 people since June 14.

“Standing water continues to cover vast swaths of the country,” the report said, citing satellite-detected water extents mapped by the United Nations Satellite Centre.

The mapping indicated preliminarily that at least 75,000 square kilometres (28,957 square miles) of land in Pakistan, the report added.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres who was on a two-day visit to Pakistan said, “I have seen many humanitarian disasters in the world, but I have never seen climate carnage on the scale of the floods here in Pakistan,” at a press conference in the port city of Karachi after witnessing the worst of the damage in southern Pakistan.

UN chief on Saturday visited several areas of Pakistan ravaged by floods, calling for increased global financial support at the end of a two-day trip aimed at raising awareness of the disaster.

Pakistan receives heavy — often destructive — rains during its annual monsoon season, which is crucial for agriculture and water supplies. But the heavy downpour this year has created havoc in the country, while rapidly melting glaciers in the north have for months heaped pressure on waterways.

Record monsoon and heavy floods in Pakistan have given rise to hunger and various illnesses which have affected 33 million people and the experts believe that the situation would aggravate in the coming days as the flood affectees are forced to live under the sky depriving the required resources.

Huge areas of the country are still underwater and hundreds of thousands of people have been forced from their homes.

According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), Pakistan is facing one of the worst flooding events in its history. The human and socio-economic toll is expected to increase as flood levels continue to rise, with immense pressure on the country’s dams.

The Pakistan Meteorological Department said that it was the wettest August since records began in 1961. National rainfall was 243 per cent above average. In the province of Balochistan, it was +590 per cent and in Sindh +726 per cent, according to the monthly report. (ANI)