On August 5 2025, at 1 pm in Dharali, Uttarkashi district, a settlement that had grown beside the pristine Bhagirathi River in Uttarakhand’s fragile Higher Himalayas was suddenly buried under 15 to 20 meters of landslide and glacial debris. The culprit? Kheer Ganga—a stream so small it travels just 7 kilometres from its cirque glacier source before meeting the Bhagirathi River near Kalp Kedar temple.
Yet for scientists Navin Juyal and Hemant Dhyani, who served on the Supreme Court’s expert bodies examining Himalayan disasters, this catastrophe was no surprise. They had been sounding alarms for years. Both Juyal and Dhyani are former members of the Supreme Court–appointed Expert Body (2013 Kedarnath disaster) and the 2019 High-Powered Committee on Char Dham road widening. They had foretold such calamities.
‘This indicates how ferocious the Higher Himalayan steep gradient glacial-fed streams are,’ they wrote in their document titled ‘Dharali disaster: An Echo of Himalayan Vulnerability and Human Failure in the Bhagirathi eco-sensitive zone’. This was red-flagged multiple times by the experts, but in vain.
In 2013, during the Kedarnath disaster, Dharali experienced significant damage from the same Kheer Ganga stream. Instead of relocating vulnerable settlements, authorities constructed an RCC wall to prevent flood debris—a band-aid solution that only encouraged more construction next to the stream. Hotels and resorts sprouted like mushrooms after rain, their foundations laid on the very debris flows that had once destroyed the area.
In March 2025, just months before disaster struck, Uttarakhand’s Tourism Department invited Prime Minister Modi to promote year-round tourism in the Char Dham valleys, which sit atop geological time bombs.
The Himalayas are the world’s most fragile orogenic belt, where tectonic forces, steep gradients, and climate change have combined to create extreme floods and landslides. “Extreme weather events, intensified by climate change, are giving rise to high magnitude extreme floods,” the authors explained.
But it’s not just nature’s fury at play. Human intervention has amplified the severity through road construction, hydropower projects, and settlements built dangerously close to rivers and streams. These events are intensified by global warming, rising black carbon emissions, and unchecked development—all factors the experts have repeatedly warned about in official reports.
Recent decades have seen an alarming acceleration of glacial retreat, elevation-dependent warming, and changing surface characteristics. Black carbon deposits now found even in pristine glacier sites not only speed up melting but threaten the very cryosphere foundational to Himalayan ecology.
The geological evidence shows that in the last 1000 years, most major floods in the upper Ganga catchment were triggered by Landslide Lake Outburst Floods (LLOFs) originating in the Higher Himalayas. The 1978 landslide that blocked the Bhagirathi River for four days, creating a 175-meter-wide, 35-meter-high sediment dam, was just one example. Its remnants still constrict the river today.
Recognising these threats, the Government of India declared the Bhagirathi Eco-Sensitive Zone (BESZ) in 2012, protecting the 100-kilometre stretch from Gomukh to Uttarkashi.
BESZ protections only on paper
The notification included strict provisions: bans on development in hazard zones, protection of springs, mandatory carrying capacity studies for tourism, restrictions on riverbank construction, and no construction within 100 metres of the river.
“The above provision in the notification remained on paper with virtually no compliance on the ground,” Juyal and Dhyani wrote.
When they served on the BESZ Zonal Master Plan scrutiny committee, all members unanimously opposed the state’s casual approach, sending complaint letters to central ministries. Their efforts fell on deaf ears.
Despite Supreme Court mandates, the Char Dham road project advanced with a uniform, ecologically damaging design. The authors note that compliance with the BESZ notification—which could have restricted harmful practices—remained on paper only. The Char Dham road widening project epitomises this failure.
Despite the BESZ protections, authorities pushed ahead with uniform 10-meter widening, marking 6,000 precious Deodar trees for felling in just a 10-kilometre stretch between Jhala and Jangla.
Among the detailed recommendations made by Juyal and Dhyani were:
- Drop the Netala bypass, which would cut through unstable, old landslide deposits and pristine forest
- Bypass Bhatwari’s chronic landslide zones with tunnels, grounded in geotechnical monitoring that showed steep slopes creeping by up to 22mm/year
- Reject road-widening through Sukhi Top, already destabilised by chronic landslides
- Opt for bridges and elevated corridors between Jhala and Jangla, to minimise both forest destruction and avalanche risk—saving thousands of old Deodar trees
- Localise construction away from riverbanks and critical slopes, respecting the physical memory of the land
The scientists had surveyed this stretch painstakingly, identifying safer alternatives using elevated corridors and high-elevation bridges. Their alternate Detailed Project Report (DPR), submitted in October 2023, could have saved lives and trees.
‘Disregard for expert advice’
Instead, by the authors’ testimony, it was effectively disregarded by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.
The disaster in Dharali, as explained by Juyal and Dhyani, is emblematic of official inertia and disregard for expert advice. Settlement grew unchecked near riverbanks and debris flows, defying all floodplain zoning and eco-zone master plan provisions.
Unlike past events, the Dharali disaster unfolded against a backdrop of official denial—including a 2023 affidavit from Uttarakhand’s Tourism Department refusing to conduct any carrying capacity study.
The tragedy extends beyond Dharali. On the same August day, three glacial-fed streams activated simultaneously within three hours, causing unprecedented damage.
At Bhatwari, a notoriously unstable road segment with slopes creeping 12-22 millimetres per year, infrastructure collapsed again. Near the abandoned Lohari Nagpala hydropower project, flood waters swept away large segments of the Gangotri highway.
A particular frustration for the authors: not only had scientists flagged these risks repeatedly, but even legal mandates from the NGT and Namami Gange prohibiting construction within 100m of riverbanks were ignored.
Meanwhile, the Uttarakhand Tourism Department fought against conducting carrying capacity studies, claiming existing measures were sufficient. The explosion of tourist infrastructure proceeded unchecked, despite clear warnings about the fragility of the Higher Himalayan ecosystems.
In their resolution and declaration—presented in the official document—Juyal and Dhyani demanded to:
- Adopt the flexible alternative road plan submitted in October 2023. This method, while not the final solution, would minimise damage to debris-laden slopes and valuable forest.
- Implement BESZ regulations fully and sincerely, transforming them from bureaucratic hurdles into genuine safeguards.
- Extend eco-sensitive zoning across all Higher Himalayan valleys, from Ladakh to Arunachal Pradesh, to conserve biodiversity and reduce disaster risk.
- Let scientists speak for science—urging honesty, integrity, and independence from bureaucratic expedience.
Juyal and Dhyani’s recommendations remain urgent: implement the alternate DPR for highway construction, extend eco-sensitive zone protections across all Higher Himalayan valleys from Ladakh to Arunachal Pradesh, and honour the BESZ notification ‘in its true letter and spirit.’
Elevated corridors, high-elevation bridges, bypass tunnels through stable rock formations—engineering solutions acknowledge the Himalayas’ awesome power while protecting human lives.
The Uttarkashi disaster stands as a searing indictment of development-at-any-cost and the silencing of scientific expertise. The authors offer a clear warning: ‘Himalayas call for a new development narrative... fully embedded in environmental, socio-cultural, and sacred tenets.’