NDMA warning overlooked: Could Kishtwar cloudburst deaths have been averted?

Could the catastrophic cloudburst last Thursday, which has so far claimed over 65 lives and left more than 80 people missing, have been averted had the Jammu and Kashmir administration heeded the flash flood and landslide alert issued by the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and suspended the Machail Mata pilgrimage for a day?

The NDMA had issued the alert on Wednesday evening, just hours before the tragedy struck.

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Fingers are being raised at the Union Territory administration for having ignored the weather alert and allowed the pilgrims to go ahead for the 8.5 km trek to the shrine from the roadhead.

The NDMA on Wednesday issued an alert for heavy rain and thundershowers in Jammu, the Pir Panjal range, and the Chenab valley, warning of possible flash floods, landslides, and shooting stones at vulnerable places over the next 48 hours.

Voices are being raised for fixing accountability for not heeding the weather alert that has led to the loss of a large number of human lives.

Replying to questions from the media, Dr Jitendra Singh, who also holds the earth sciences portfolio, said the IMD had already predicted heavy rain for three days. However, he noted that it is difficult to predict a cloudburst, which happens due to a number of local factors that lead to changes in a particular section of the atmosphere.

Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said a collective view must be taken by the hill states of J&K, Uttarakhand, and Himachal Pradesh, which have recently suffered colossal losses due to cloudbursts, glacial lake outbursts, and freak weather events.

The issue of whether the loss of life could have been averted by the authorities needs to be examined, he said.

Meanwhile, MLA and chairman, committee on environment, Mohammad Yousuf Tarigami, has said that the deadly cloudburst has once again brought into sharp focus the vulnerability of Jammu and Kashmir’s Himalayan region to extreme weather events like flash floods, landslides, avalanches, etc. The tragic incident underscores the existential threat posed by climate change to the fragile environment of the Himalayan range and its ecological balance.

Tarigami demanded an urgent, time-bound probe into the tragic incident, questioning why precautionary measures were not taken despite early warnings from the Meteorological Department about severe rainfall, cloudbursts, and flash floods in the high altitudes of the Jammu region. “Why were these alerts ignored and preventive measures not taken? It amounts to criminal negligence”, he said. The bureaucratic inertia and lack of concern must be accounted for, the CPI(M) MLA said.