Cloudbursts. Flash floods. Landslides. Uttarakhand has faced a devastating monsoon. A BJP parliamentarian, who narrowly escaped a landslide in September, described the situation as a “severe natural calamity”. But the highway he was travelling on tells another story.

In 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone for the Char Dham pariyojana – a project to widen 900 kilometres of highways that lead to four Hindu shrines high up in the Uttarakhand Himalayas.

Experts warned that cutting the mountains to widen the highways would spell disaster. They even submitted a voluminous report to the Supreme Court, which detailed why the project risked triggering deadly landslides. But their concerns were overruled.

This year, their warnings appear to have come true.

What is the extent of devastation along the Char Dham route? Could it have been avoided? Can anything be done to prevent future disasters?

Help Scroll’s Vaishnavi Rathore and Kritika Pant hit the ground and look for answers. Earlier this year, they teamed up to produce this video report from Sikkim. Fund their next video report from Uttarakhand by clicking here.

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