Uttarakhand land subsidence crisis: Wall collapses in Joshimath's village

In the wake of the land subsidence crisis in the Joshimath area of Uttarakhand's Chamoli, a wall collapsed in Joshimath's Marwari village on Sunday, a local told ANI.

The wall collapse incident reported by locals occurred in Jaypee Colony around 11 am.

Following the wall collapse incident, authorities deployed Men and Machinery to rebuild the wall.

"The work is in progress. Workers have been deployed to rebuild the wall. They are facing some issues. I was not here when the wall collapsed," Prabhas, a local said while talking to ANI.

Earlier, Cracks have started to appear in Sharana Chai village in Uttarakhand's Chamoli district which is prone to cloud bursting and stone-falling incidents.

"The walls started to crack first time in 2007. Then in 2013 and 2018. There was a cloudburst incident in 2018. Earth collapsed due to leakage from a company in 2007. Water had flooded around 700 canals then. Natural calamities like stone falling and cloud bursts repeatedly keep happening here," Dalip Singh Pawar said while talking to ANI.

"There was a water leakage incident a few years ago. It happened in 2007. Due to water leakage, the house started to cave in and submerged. In case of low magnitude earthquake whole village will be severely affected," Said another resident.

"Today, Joshimath is on the brink of collapse, Tomorrow, the whole of Uttarakhand will be destroyed," he added.

Disaster Management Secretary Ranjit Kumar Sinha on Sunday inspected the landslide-affected areas in Uttarakhand's Joshimath and said that there has been an uptick in the number of cracks, but no new areas have faced damages.

The Secretary inspected areas including Auli Ropeway, Manohar Bagh, Shankaracharya Math, JP Colony along with geologists and senior officials.

Speaking to ANI, Sinha said that the teams are conducting tests to ascertain if there is any particular pattern of developing cracks.

"Relief and rescue operations are being conducted. There has been an uptick in the number of cracks in some places. Cracks haven't developed in new areas. There is a minor increase in the cracks of approx 1mm but we are monitoring them. We are also finding a pattern so that in the future there is no damage. All teams are conducting tests whether there is any pattern developing of the cracks. After the tests, we will take action based on it. The cracks have increased, but there is nothing to worry about," he said.

"The Central and state governments are making combined efforts during this period. Our all teams have reached here for investigation & now their research will tell what is the reason behind it. After that action will be taken on the same accordingly," Sinha added.

He informed that the geophysical study of the affected area is being done by the NGRI Hyderabad. NGRI is studying the underground water channel. After the study, the geophysical and hydrological map will also be made available by NGRI. These maps will be useful for Joshimath's drainage plan and stabilization plan.