New Delhi/Dehradun:
As rescue and relief operations are on in full swing in rain-ravaged Uttarakhand, questions are now being raised over whether a warning was issued and if this were ignored by the state government.
The Met department says that it had issued adequate warnings to the state government 48 hours in advance. Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna, though, insists that the forecast by the weatherman was neither specific nor actionable.
"It rains every year... there was no specific warning of a cloudburst, that too has to be area-specific," he told NDTV, thus suggesting that the government possibly couldn't have evacuated residents or cancelled the famous 'Char Dham Yatra'. Thousands of pilgrims, who had undertaken the
yatra - a trip to four holy places including
Kedarnath and Badrinath - had been stranded since last weekend. While most have been rescued from Kedarnath, thousands are waiting to be evacuated.
(Read)We did stop all the flight that the government was operating... but how can anyone control the movement of one lakh tourists who were already there and the local population whose livelihood depends on this "Char Dham Yatra"," he said.
The Chief Minister's claims have been echoed by the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), which is engaged in relief operations in Uttarakhand. The Met department issued a general warning for Uttarakhand despite experiencing unprecedented rainfall over the weekend, that was 450% above the average. Worryingly, the absence of a specific warning came despite the Met acquiring a Rs 15 crore, high-tech Doppler radar system, that is equipped to predict extreme weather conditions, such as cloudbursts and thunderstorms.
The NDMA has also pointed out the absence of a radar system in Uttarakhand, vital for a hill state prone to cloudbursts and flash floods.