Disastrous events of 2021 in Uttarakhand Province of India: Causes, Consequences and Suggestions for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR)

The Central Himalayan state of Uttarakhand in Indian subcontinent has a long disastrous history before its creation because of various natural hazards like earthquake, landslide, flood, flash flood, cloudburst, glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF), and landslide lake outburst flood (LLOF). These events caused massive loss of lives, property and infrastructure in the same region. Adverse impact on local inhabitants as also pilgrims and tourists across the country and abroad due to the same. Recently, throughout the pre-monsoon, during monsoon and post-monsoon periods heavy downpour, cloudburst, rock fall, debris flow, avalanche, flood/flash flood occurred in many places of the state. Causing 308 people were killed, 61 people went missing and 105 people were injured while 1048 farm animals lost in these incidences. Except for, about 5729 houses were fully damaged and 18.5 ha of agriculture fields were also washed away in these incidences. These are mainly attributed to changes in weather regime and abnormal rainfall patterns together with indiscriminate manner human initiatives in high-risk areas. The main purpose of this research is to highlight the recent disastrous issues. As also find out the possible causes of recent disastrous incidences and suggestions for reduction of disaster risk within the region.

Keywords:

Cloudburst, Flash flood, Heavy rainfall, Landslide Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR),

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