How climate change, tourism, and human greed push Uttarkashi towards disaster

The road to Uttarkashi — dotted with rhododendron (buransh), deodar cedar, chir pine, Amla (Indian gooseberry), English walnut, and apricot, plum, and pomegranate trees as well as ficus species like the Sacred Fig (Ficus religiosa) — curls like a prayer around the shoulders of the Himalayas.

In the afternoon light, the pines gleam with resin, the air smells faintly of woodsmoke, and somewhere above the valley a river hammers its way through stone. Here, the peaks hold snow even in summer, and the wind that sweeps down is cool enough to make you close your jacket.

This seems like another world: quieter, cleaner, blessed with the kind of silence that city-dwellers call peace. But the people of these hills know peace is only a season, and sometimes, not even that. In the high reaches, serenity is a delicate gift. However, when disaster comes to these mountains, the same landscape that lulls the heart can churn it with dread. The comfort of clean air is replaced by the panic of escape: to get down, to get away, to be spared. 

For centuries, Uttarkashi has been a site of pilgrimage. It is the sacred terrain of the Char Dham shrines — Yamunotri, Gangotri, Kedarnath, Badrinath — where mountains and rivers are not mere parts of topography, but incarnations of gods and goddesses. Over the past fifteen years, the people of Uttarkashi, also known as the ‘Kashi of the North’ or ‘Shivnagri,’ have noticed a grim pattern: the frequency and intensity of natural disasters have increased.

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The latest mudslide and flash flood in the wake of cloudburst in Uttarkashi that flattened the Dharali village is part of that pattern. The reasons vary, depending on whom you ask — scientists cite climate change, shifting rainfall, and glacial melt, while villagers point to a different register of cause: the ways of the gods in Devbhoomi (the land of the gods), the carelessness of tourists, and the greed of human development.

Uttarkashi’s Main Market looks deceptively calm on a late afternoon. The clang of steel utensils from a nearby dhaba, the scent of chai wafting into the narrow lane, the steady trickle of pilgrims and trekkers passing through. But for Jasbir Singh, who has been running the dhaba for 30 years, the Himalayas are no longer the same mountains he came to know when he first left his native Tehri. 

“There’s not one cause for what’s happening to our hills; there are many,” he says, pausing as if measuring the weight of each word. “Global warming is a big one. Once, Gaumukh was only 18 kilometres from Gangotri. Now, it’s 24. The glacier is melting away. We cut into the mountains for roads, blasting as we go, leaving the slopes raw and unstable. And then there’s divine wrath; some people come here with true faith, others only for fun.”

Jasbir clearly remembers how, in 2004, the Varunavat mountain in Uttarkashi burst apart, releasing a river of sand and debris for three days. Hotels crumbled, shops vanished, and the town reeled from the loss. Today, illegal construction lines the banks of the Ganga. Waste seeps into the river. The danger only grows. “Who knows what will happen in the next ten or fifteen years?” he says.

In Singoti village, guesthouse owner Balwant Singh Rana has a different starting point but reaches a similar conclusion. “The mountains are sprouting too many nalas now,” he says, referring to channels where water gathers. “It collects in huge quantities, and when it moves, it moves all at once, bringing disaster. And yes, divine wrath, too. Encroachment on the Ganga’s banks is rising. People are building five-storey hotels and houses. Weather patterns have shifted. After the Tehri Dam came, it rains more often here, and earlier in the season.” 

Buddhiraja Ramola, a long-time observer of Uttarakhand’s cycles, has a grim statistic: “Here, every four to five years, a disaster comes.” He blames the proliferation of gadera, slopes where fallen trees, loose soil, and stones — debris from landslides — gather. “Water collects there, then rushes down in a torrent, carrying destruction with it. Pine trees don’t help either.”

Ramola laments the transformation of the Char Dham region from a landscape of devotion to one of packaged tourism. “Earlier, people came with faith. Now they come for recreation. Temples have VIP darshan — pay enough and you see the deity. The poor can’t even glimpse God. But Bhagwan sees everything, and he punishes.”

In the district court, clerk Amender Singh Bisht has seen another side of the story. “The population has grown, and visitors keep increasing. Development cuts into the mountains, making them weaker. Tourists throw plastic bottles. Pollution rises. Even among the kanwariyas, some eat meat and drink — mocking the faith. That too invites divine anger.”

For him, the pine forests are both a symbol and a symptom: “They suck up too much water, and the soil beneath weakens. The weather’s unrecognisable. It used to snow; now, barely a flake. Winters were once so bitter we had to leave for other villages for months.”

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At 79, retired army man Sumer Singh Bisht has a simple measure of change: “Earlier, disasters didn’t happen. Now, trees are cut, mountains are cut, and the weather has shifted. Disasters are bigger.” Rakesh, a goat herder from Kurali, has lived here all his life. “Now disasters come more often,” he says quietly. “It’s frightening. But beyond fear lies victory. Who can defeat nature? Still, human interference plays its part. Cutting the mountains loosens the earth. But we do need the roads.”

Just as roads are necessary for connectivity, electricity from hydel power is essential for modern life. But the cost is high. “Mountains are being cut without restraint,” says Amender. “Blasting for highways weakens their core. Trees are felled, and with them goes the soil’s grip. In heavy rain, landslides and floods follow.” 

For Vikas, a B.Ed student from Doonda, the key problem is scale. “It’s excessive human interference. Glaciers are melting. We’re going where we shouldn’t go. Development is necessary, but within limits. Roads are necessary, but within limits. People are building hotels right on the Ganga’s edge, out of greed. Even rainfall has changed. Winters are cold but without snow. Dharali, where disaster struck, has too many hotels; some built directly under gadera slopes. Above Harsil are seven lakes. There’s so much water there that a disaster could strike anytime, yet hotels keep going up.”

Across Uttarkashi, the stories converge: glaciers shrinking, rivers swelling, rain arriving too soon, soil loosening under the blast of dynamite and the weight of concrete. The Himalayas may look timeless, but those who live in their shadow know how quickly the balance tips. And if these voices are to be believed, that tipping point is already behind us.

In the hill people’s telling, the dangers of Uttarakhand are never just about physics or meteorology. They are about relationships between humans and gods, between dwellers and their land, between the living and the long arc of memory.

The Char Dham roads now carry more buses, more SUVs, and more plastic bags than ever before. Yet, along those same roads, shrines still cling to cliffside bends, and rivers are still worshipped with marigold garlands and copper pots of water.

The people here know that development cannot be stopped nor can the urge to travel, to seek the mountains. But they also know that paradise can become perilous. The gods, as Ramola warns, can bless, but they can also punish.

In Uttarkashi, where every peak has a name and a story, and every stream is a goddess’s gift, the message is clear. The hills are crying out. The question is whether we are listening.