The Uttarakhand experience should make all state governments sit up and take notice. All environmental norms have been flouted by power projects. Building permission was indiscriminately granted to commercial complexes including hotels jutting out of the rocky slopes. With climate change in full force, cloudbursts of the scale that hit Uttarakhand cannot be ruled out in the North Eastern region and the State of Meghalaya. This region is known to be an earthquake belt and is placed at Zone 5 which is a seismologically vulnerable zone. Structural designers use earthquake resistant designs for structures in Zone 5. But in Meghalaya no one has really cared to assess whether structures, even Government owned ones, are earthquake resistant. This would of course require more investment and rigour which governments mostly have no time for. But neither do privately owned buildings pay attention to these specifications.
The coal mining areas of Meghalaya which have been abandoned by mine owners after discovering that coal exploration into further depths is no longer viable, would be the most vulnerable. If an earthquakes strikes or there is a cloudburst and nature’s fury devastates the hilltops carrying along huge boulders along with it, or, if the earth around the abandoned coal mines collapses then it will indeed be Armageddon now. Unfortunately no lessons are learnt from the Uttarakhand experience except to commiserate and discuss the chain of unfortunate events that have hit that state. What is worse is that the meteriological department had warned of the impending disaster but it went unheeded. The last MUA Government had granted permission for taller buildings in Meghalaya. No one protested this move and the builders hastened to put up an additional floor. It’s back to business as usual. But even in areas that are beyond government control the traditional institutions are not worried about the consequences of environmentally destructive practices such as stone quarrying by gouging stones out of hillsides and leaving the hillsides barren. All this will take a toll because nature has a way of catching up with human greed.
