Living On The Edge, Dangerously

By Jaideep Mazumdar & Deep Gazmer



"And then the path vanished. Had it not been for the bright moonlight, we might have walked straight into a void. The rain had caused a landslide, and where there had been a narrow path there was now only a precipice of loose, slippery shale." -'The Glacier' by Ruskin Bond

Living on the edge is not just a figure of speech for people in the hills. Writer or tiller, they all live close to nature's bounty - and its boundless fury. And nowhere is the danger starker than in the Indian Himalayas, among the world's most earthquakeprone zones. Major parts, including Kashmir and the Northeast, fall in Zone V - the most seismically active. But the towns standing on these heaving hills seem oblivious of the risks as they build with a vengeance.

Quake-hit Gangtok is a clutter of concrete buildings, all of them hanging on precariously to steep mountain slopes. Most of them have developed ominous cracks after the September 18 quake. "Some of these buildings have to be evacuated immediately, and also the ones that are below them down the hill," an engineer inspecting the damage says.
Experts say that none of the buildings in the Sikkimese capital, which draws lakhs of tourists every year, are earthquake-resistant. Pankaj Adhikari, an architect in Gangtok, says the city doesn't have a proper building code, "and even the archaic one that does exist is flouted at will". Buildings with more floors than five-and-half storeys - the maximum allowed - are common and no action has ever been taken against such constructions, he fumes.

"The simple ABC of building codes for earthquake-prone regions is that all structures should resist minor to moderate earthquakes (3 to 5.9 on the Richter scale) undamaged; resist moderate to major (6 to 7.9) earthquakes without significant structural damage and survive severe earthquakes (8 or more) without collapse," Adhikari says. "But more than 90% buildings in Gangtok have suffered structural damage in Sunday's earthquake which was in the 'strong' category."

In the last 100 years, the Northeast has experienced hundreds of temblors of varying intensity - 210 between 5 and 5.9; 128 between 6 and 6.9; 15 between 7 and 7.9, and four of 8 or above magnitude. But, learning no lessons from the past, almost all the state capitals have turned into concrete jungles. Shillong is no exception. "People can no longer afford the luxury of spacious Assam-type buildings on sprawling compounds, and are forced to go for concrete constructions due to constraint of space," says an official in the Meghalaya capital's department of urban affairs. The state also has several unorganized coal mining projects. A major quake could spell disaster for these 'rat hole' mines and their workers.

Large dams add to the risk. As many as 168 dams are planned in Arunachal Pradesh alone to tap the state's 50,000MW hydro-power potential. Construction work is already on for the 2000MW Lower Subansiri Project, the country's biggest hydro-power dam. Several organizations have opposed such projects out of concern for Assam which is located downstream. An expert committee, comprising faculty from IIT Guwahati, Gauhati University and Dibrugarh University, in its report submitted to the Assam government in 2010 raised the issue of threat from the Lower Subansiri Project due to its location in the seismic zone.

Sunday's earthquake also shook the Darjeeling Hills. But worse is yet to come, warn experts. The fragile nature of the hills and their vulnerability to landslides compounds these fears. Kalimpongbased Praful Rao, founder-member of Save the Hills (STH), an NGO working for raising awareness about landslides, says unplanned urban development is causing more landslides. "Deforestation and man-made drains in the mountains have further weakened the hills," he says.

Unchecked construction is another big concern. "Nowadays, more than five-storey buildings are being constructed here. There are over 400-500 such structures in the town area itself," says Bharat Prakash Rai, secretary of Fosep (Federation of Society for Environment Protection). He says the permissible height of 11.5m is being flouted. "Huge constructions are coming up at more than 60-degree slopes (twice the recommended limit)." Darjeeling Municipality engineer Vijay Tamang says they are now trying to control that.

The Dalai Lama's home, too, has seen unprecedented growth with a slew of hotels, monasteries and educational institutes coming up in the past decade. Dharamshala is the headquarters of Himachal's Kangra district which witnessed last century's biggest earthquake in 1905. The epicentre of that temblor, which killed 20,000 people, was near Mcleodganj, the seat of the Tibetan government in exile. "Dharamshala lies in the Schuppen Zone in which closely spaced, mutually thrusted belts of various rocks lie delicately stuck over each other, making it one of the most dangerous areas. The soil and rocks in towns like Dharamshala are burdened under heavy construction and can give in at the slightest tremor," says Chandigarh-based geology professor A D Ahluwalia.

And what of Shimla, capital of Himachal? Almost the entire town, in Seismic Zone IV, could come crumbling down in the event of a major quake. The state's town and country planning minister, Mohinder Singh, recently told the Assembly that 98% of the buildings in Shimla were not safe. Less than 2% were earthquake-resistant, he said. Shimla is also a landslide-prone area and heavy construction pressure has started sinking the historic Ridge. "Should a disaster strike Shimla, it is bound to be of catastrophic proportions," says environmentalist Billy Malhans.

As for J&K, a legislation is in the works to make quake-resistant private buildings mandatory. This comes six years after parts of the state were flattened by a devastating earthquake. The state government had earlier issued guidelines that no government building shall be constructed unless it complies with Bureau of Indian Standards codes on quake resistance. Disaster management cell coordinator Aamir Ali says building bylaws have been amended "clause by clause" in consultation with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's national seismic advisor Anand S Arya. The Bill is now awaiting an Assembly nod.

"We have trained masons, engineers, architects and structural engineers in earthquake risk management," says Ali. "We have also roped in imams to convey the message. That has helped a lot."

(With reports from Naresh Mitra, Guwahati; Manosh Das, Shillong; S Gopal Puri, Chandigarh; Ravinder Makhaik, Shimla, and Sameer Arshad, Delhi)