Ranbir Singh Pathania
It happened in Ladakh in 2010. Amarnath in 2022. Ramban in April 2025.
And now again, the monsoons in Jammu & Kashmir have turned deadly.
Another set of cloudbursts. Another set of lives lost. Another cycle of relief and rescue struggling against time and terrain.
In Kathua, four perished and six were injured, with even the Police Station inundated.
Nonetheless, most horrendous -ever was at Cheshoti in Kishtwar-nestled along the sacred Shri Machail Mata Yatra route-where torrents buried villages, swept lives, and silenced prayers. Nearly 60 dead, hundreds injured, scores missing.
Sri Machail Mata shrine is central to Dogra history, with General Zorawar Singh offering obeisance here before his Himalayan conquests. Today, it is the heart of Jammu’s pilgrimage circuit, attracting even 30,000 devotees a day during the yatra.
Cloudbursts-once rare-are now recurrent in the fragile Himalayan belt. Defined as sudden downpours exceeding 100 mm in an hour, their impact goes beyond meteorological charts: torn landscapes, grieving families, and shaken faith. These are not freak accidents. They reflect systemic gaps-climate change as the trigger, our inertia to adapt as the force multipliers.
Lessons from Cheshoti
Fragile Infrastructure in Sacred Places
Pilgrimage routes draw lakhs every year, yet safety often takes a backseat. Cheshoti-the last motorable stop to a centuries-old shrine-had no robust shelters, early warning systems, or evacuation plans. Faith cannot replace preparedness.
Forecasting Failure
With satellites, Doppler radars, and AI, cloudburst risks can be mapped. Japan uses predictive alerts for flash floods; Italy does so for Dolomite landslides. Yet India’s Himalayan corridors remain largely uncovered by real-time systems.
Governance Delays, Nature’s Speed
Rescue delays caused by broken equipment and protocol wrangling show how disasters often worsen not from intensity, but inefficiency. Chile, earthquake-prone, has drilled its citizens to respond within minutes. That urgency is absent here.
Climate Change as Force Multiplier
Himalayan monsoon rainfall has risen 10-15% in three decades. What was once seasonal rain now arrives as avalanches of water and debris. From Ladakh to Uttarakhand to Amarnath, the script repeats with tragic familiarity.
From Sympathy to Systems
Immediate Priorities
Early Warning Systems: Install automated gauges, Doppler radars, and AI alarms in high-risk zones. Bhutan’s Glacial Lake Outburst Flood system shows how technology saves lives.
Safety Audits: Review hillside construction, langars, and shelters. Nepal’s post-earthquake rebuild emphasized seismic safety; India’s Himalayas need similar audits.
More Equip, Less Exhibit: Operational helicopters, ambulances, and mobile bridges must replace tokenistic VIP visits that hinder relief.
Long-Term Paradigm
Climate-Resilient Pilgrimage Design: Re-engineer routes with risk maps, zoning controls, sturdy shelters, and drainage systems.
Unified Forecast Grid: Connect IoT-based weather stations feeding AI models for hyper-local alerts, on the model of Swiss avalanche warnings.
Tourism with Accountability: Dedicate a share of pilgrimage and tourism revenue to disaster preparedness and resilience.
Empowered Communities: Train Panchayats, NGOs, and volunteers in first response. Kerala’s 2018 floods proved how empowered locals save lives before official relief arrives.
Citizens, Too, Have a Role
Institutions alone cannot shield against calamity. Pilgrimages must be treated as both spiritual and civic responsibility. Simple steps-avoiding litter, respecting designated paths, heeding advisories, and joining drills-can reduce risks sharply. Iceland enforces strict tourist codes in volcanic zones; the Himalayas deserve no less.
Healing Through Action
The survivors of Cheshoti-those buried under rubble or still searching for kin-deserve more than condolences. They deserve systems that prevent repetition. The climate will not relent, the Himalayas will remain fragile-but human preparedness can be strengthened.
As India reflects on Independence Day amid tragedy, freedom must be redefined-not only as sovereignty, but as freedom from preventable deaths, governance lapses, and the fatalistic acceptance of disaster as destiny.
Let the Himalayas remain spaces of devotion, not of recurring devastation.
“The mountain teaches one lesson above all: respect-respect its strength, its silence, and its unpredictability.”
(The author is an Advocate at the J&K High Court and Member, J&K Legislative Assembly.)
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