Joshimath: It has been more than a month since Bharti Devi left her home which was damaged due to cracks after the soil began sinking in Joshimath in Chamoli district of Uttarakhand. Now the septuagenarian spends half her day near her now-abandoned home which she misses regularly and other half at the sub-divisional office, hoping to receive some positive news about their permanent rehabilitation.
Bharti Devi is currently living in a temporary relief camp at an abandoned army barrack. She was among the first families of Joshimath whose houses became uninhabitable after the land-subsidence situation began aggravating."The land beneath our home began to sink on January 2 and by the very next day our house had become uninhabitable. All this happened suddenly," she said.
"We and nearly half a dozen neighbouring families picked up whatever we could from our homes and took refuge in a nearby school which was closed at that time. But now it has been opened and we have been ousted from there as well," she added. Each night weighs heavy on her as she struggles to sleep. The future seems uncertain for the people of Joshimath whose lives continues to reel under the impact of land subsidence that hit this city tucked away in the mountains more than a month ago.
Still awaiting permanent rehabilitation, many residents who were using a primary school in Singhdhar ward as a temporary shelter had to move to an abandoned army barracks after the school was reopened. They fear that with the arrival of pilgrims for the Char Dham yatra in April and May, they will be deprived of even this accommodation. Bharti Devi's family is among the oldest residents of the Singdhar ward.
"Our ancestors settled here soon after Joshimath came into existence. The settlement in this area is almost as old as them," she said pointing towards three ancient streams flowing near her erstwhile home. Since February 1, these families are living in the deserted army barracks in the same ward. Another resident in his 70s, Shivlal lived next to Devi. While his house, perched precariously on a rock with cracks, is not as ramshackle as hers, the fields below have developed huge cracks.
Shivlal spends the nights in the army barracks and strolls around his old house during the day. His wife Vishweshwari Devi also accompanies him to their damaged house to look after their cattle. "How can we be secure if our cows are not. We don't just need a home for ourselves but also a shelter for our cattle," she said.
"We can not go away from here until we are sure that our cattles are safe," she added. The fields in which Shivlal and his wife grew crops are sliding towards river Alaknanda. The disaster has not just ruined their home but also adversely impacted cattle rearing and farming which was their means of livelihood. Pointing towards her fields full of crevices and cracks, Vishweshwari despairingly asked, "Can anything be sown into them?"
She said her husband used to be a cheerful person but the disaster has changed him. He is often silently roaming around his damaged house worrying about the future of his dead son's children. Pushkar Singh Bisht, who retired from the army two and a half decades ago is also staying with his eight family members in a temporary relief camp.