For more than the last 15 days, one news item that occupied headlines in all the media was the collapse of SILKYARA TUNNEL in the state of Uttarakhand in Northern India, and the 41 construction workers who got trapped in that collapsed tunnel. By the grace of God and the great & untiring efforts of all the team members of the rescue team, all 41 workers were brought out safely yesterday night. Imagine the nature of the collapse and the difficulties encountered by the various agencies of the rescue team, it took 17 days to save those 41 workers.
The Silkyara tunnel is supposed to be 4.5 Kilometers long and located on the Char Dham pilgrimage route, which is currently one of the most ambitious projects of Prime Minister Modi’s government. It aims to link four important Hindu sites in northern India via 890 kilometers of wide two-lane all-weather roads that are being built to link the holy towns of Gangotri, Yamunotri, Badrinath, and Kedarnath.
The environmentalists and other experts say that unplanned and rampant development is making the local ecosystem even more vulnerable to change. The years of unbridled construction, hydropower development, and the lack of a proper drainage system have all escalated the crisis.
Aftermath the Silkyara tunnel collapse, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), which builds and manages has been ordered to inspect all tunnel construction projects nationwide. At present, there are 29 under construction tunnel projects in the country and NHAI has been asked to undertake safety audits of all. The audit will look into 12 tunnel projects in Himachal Pradesh, six in the J & K region, and also other tunnel projects in Uttarakhand. These three states are part of the Himalayas region.
Given our country’s poor track record for safety, there are some obvious areas where improvement is needed. For example. The Silkyara tunnel apparently did not have an emergency exit, which posed another challenge to the rescue team which was struggling with busted machinery and possible unstable terrain. Many experts are of the opinion that this collapse is a sign of a wider problem in the Himalayas, where poorly planned development is having an impact on the frequency and intensity of disasters.
The state of Uttarakhand is often hit by landslides, earthquakes, and flooding, and it is believed that the mountains there are geologically unstable. As Indian and global media focus on this rescue story, there is more and more attention being drawn to the fragility of the Himalayan Ecosystem. This year alone, the Himalayan region has experienced several disasters, including the sinking of Joshimath town in Uttarakhand to floods and landslides in Himachal Pradesh, as well as a glacial lake outburst in Sikkim in October, and this tunnel collapse.
Environmentalists believe work on Silkyara Tunnel started before sufficient geological surveys were conducted. Further, no lessons had been learned from the 2021 floods in the Rishi Ganga and Dhauli valleys, which claimed more than 200 lives, including those of many who were trapped inside the tunnels of the Tapovan Vishnugad hydropower plant. Further, the advanced safety measures for the tunnel were missing in this case. The execution of the emergency evacuation was not planned properly at the design stage.
As per experts, “Anything in the Himalayas should be done with in-depth studies and analysis and with detailed dialogue with community and scientists. Saving the Himalayas from big developmental destruction is equally important otherwise more lives will be at the risk in future.”
The total length of roads in the Char Dham project is around 900 kilometers, but officially the project is not a single one but 53 small projects, and each project has been environmentally assessed separately, instead of one project. Maybe this is the reason some key environmental issues were overlooked.
The Environment Think tank in the country is of the opinion that climate change will bring more volatility to the region because of frequent unseasonal rains in the region. Various studies point out that glaciers in the Himalayas are melting dramatically, which is increasing the risks of floods and landslides. The reality is that this region is different -it is not the plains of India, which are situated on alluvial soil; it is not the Indian peninsular region where there is hard rock.
In the end, this tunnel collapse incident has once again raised concern about mining safety standards in India, with the government focusing on rapid infrastructure projects through the mountains but failing to implement proper and adequate guidelines and procedures to avoid any untoward incidents and disasters.
It is high time that these concerns should be addressed, otherwise, these types of disasters will keep on happening.
Waiting for your views on this blog.
Anil Malik
Mumbai, India
29th November 2023.