2013 Floods, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, North India

Reasons for catastrophe
Contrary to the common belief that the catastrophe was caused primarily by natural disaster, it has been found that government policies held the greatest responsibility. In recent times such incidents have been occurring at an alarming rate. The negligence of government towards rapid deforestation and inaction towards wrong ways of construction work, hydro power projects, mining projects are main reasons behind frequent floods and landslides. The blast carried out in anti-environmental ways and government's blind eye towards them made significant natural alterations in nature. The hydel projects have been undertaken without assessing their impact on environment. Asiganga hydro-power project played a key role in the Uttarkashi disaster in 2011-12. At the project site of Asiganga, blasts are being carried our regularly to make the dam which results in debris falling into the river. The debris raises the water level in the river which leads to flash floods when it rains heavily. A large number of trees are also cut for these projects, causing soil erosion and leading to massive landslides. More than 220 power and mining projects are running in 14 river valleys in Uttarakhand. Several rivers are being diverted through tunnels for these projects leading to major disasters in the state. .
The environmentalists strongly condemned government's inaction towards mushrooming of buildings and houses along the banks of the river, construction of dams, blocking of river's natural flow. Due to these in August 2012, buildings were washed away by Uttarkashi flash floods and later, a cloudburst in Rudraprayag had claimed 69 lives. The Central government's non seriousness about keeping its assurance for stopping the work on hydro electric projects on Alaknanda and Mandakini, the two main tributaries of the Ganga which meets at Rudraprayag resulted in this disaster, which is the epicenter of the devastation. Two 20km tunnels are being built to divert these rivers for hydel projects and constant blasting of the river banks has affected the local ecology. The green cover on the hills that checks and absorbs the flow of water has been eroded in the name of hydel energy..