In a startling revelation, Minister of State and former head of the Nehru Institute of Mountaineering (NIM), Col Ajay Kothiyal (retd), has said that 147 people are still buried under the debris at Dharali and the state government has failed to extricate them to date. He questioned the efforts of the rescue teams and the state government in retrieving the bodies from beneath the debris.
“Why can’t we develop a system today that helps people in Dharali live safely? Around 147 people are buried under the debris at Dharali following the August 5 disaster triggered by heavy rain. We cannot say today that they cannot be extricated. We cannot leave those 147 persons under the debris and merely state that Dharali is suppressed, thereby questioning the people’s wisdom in settling there. Not a single work has been undertaken in Dharali since the August 5 tragedy. What to talk of construction works, they haven’t even made any effort in that direction. Houses remain trapped under the debris. The deities worshipped by my father are there. How can I leave that? My children’s degrees and my wife’s mangalsutra are also lying there,” Kothiyal said while speaking at an event titled ‘World Summit on Disaster Management’ in Dehradun.
Col Ajay Kothiyal, who also serves as a minister of state-ranked adviser to the Uttarakhand Rajya Sainik Kalyan Board, said that scientists had turned the Dharali disaster rescue operation into a ‘blame game’. “Geologists today are claiming that the Himalaya is unstable. It’s true, but does China follow this theory? On the contrary, China is moving ahead,” Kothiyal said.
He added that when Prime Minister Narendra Modi referred to border villages as the ‘first villages’, the issue generated huge excitement. “The village at Dharali is the first village. This means we must add value to it. Why are we calling Dharali the first and vibrant village? It is because the Chinese threat in that valley has become very strong. Earlier, there used to be only a battalion; now there is an entire brigade. ITBP deployment has also increased there, indicating the level of Chinese threat,” said Kothiyal.
The Uttarakhand BJP leader added, “Today we are trapped because scientists and geologists have declared this place unstable, while past regulators had claimed that it should not have been suppressed by the debris. Geologists, UCOST, and the Wadia Institute are unable to do anything.”
Kothiyal, who served as the head of NIM for a substantial period, alleged that none of the deceased trapped under the Dharali debris had been retrieved by the rescuers, while the local Army unit stationed at Harsil was able to exhume seven bodies.