Rainy Days Keep Haunting Uttarakhand — Cracked Homes, Collapsing Highways, and Mounting Deaths Expose State’s Fragile Infrastructure
Dehradun, October 23 — As rains continue to lash Uttarakhand, the toll on human life and infrastructure keeps mounting — from floods sweeping through Doon Valley to collapsing highways and cracked homes across hill districts.
The latest Uttarakhand Disaster & Accident Analysis Initiative (UDAAI) report by the SDC Foundation paints a grim picture of a state buckling under its own reckless development.
The September 2025 UDAAI report — the 36th consecutive monthly edition — documents how cloudbursts and flash floods claimed over 27 lives in Dehradun alone, with 16 people still missing.
Torrential rains in Sahastradhara and Maldevta flattened bridges, snapped road links, and left hundreds stranded in Mussoorie and nearby areas. Similar scenes of devastation were reported from Chamoli and Pauri, where floods and landslides wiped out roads and homes.
The report blames the worsening crisis on “unscientific construction and fragile geology,” noting that even 11 months after a survey, no early warning system has been installed at the vulnerable Vasundhara glacial lake in Chamoli. In Pauri’s Srinagar, residents are fleeing cracked homes allegedly damaged by blasting for the ₹16,200-crore Rishikesh–Karanprayag rail project, while parts of the Badrinath highway continue to crumble under persistent landslides.
Experts quoted in the report, including IPCC author Dr. Anjal Prakash and environmentalist Suresh Bhai, warned that “unscientific construction is destabilizing slopes” and turning infrastructure projects into “disaster multipliers.”
SDC Foundation founder Anoop Nautiyal said that the Doon Valley floods and ongoing slope instability show that Uttarakhand’s disasters are increasingly man-made.
“Our development path is unsustainable. Without ecological sensitivity and climate-resilient governance, these tragedies will only deepen,” he said.
The report also recalls the Dharali tragedy, where even after 50 days, the village remains deserted — a stark reminder of the human and administrative cost of slow recovery.
With this edition, the UDAAI initiative has completed three continuous years of documenting Uttarakhand’s monthly disaster data since October 2022.
Nautiyal said a special monsoon feature covering July–September 2025 will be released soon to coincide with the state’s 25th statehood anniversary, calling for renewed dialogue on resilience, responsible planning, and sustainable mountain development.
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