Joshimath crisis update: Residents worried as fresh cracks appear in houses situated in safe zone

Fresh cracks have appeared in several buildings located in the safe zone of Uttarakhand's Joshimath, months after the town made headlines for sinking because of its own weight. The new cracks have appeared in the Gandhinagar area of the Joshimath, which is likely because of the fresh rainfall in the region.

These cracks have appeared in the buildings in the yellow zone, which is right below the red zone area that suffered extreme cracks earlier this year. These severe cracks were observed in the Sunil, Manohar Bagh, Ravigram, Singhdhar, Marwadi areas of Joshimath.

Over 500 houses located in the red zone developed cracks, and the government had to evacuate people to rehabilitation camps.

A local resident Virendra Lal Tamta, whose house has now developed new minor cracks, told India Today that there were no cracks earlier and his house was in the safe zone. However, the administration placed a yellow sticker on his home to keep it under watch.

Now with the monsoon season around the corner, people living in Joshimath are worried about their houses even if they are in the safe zone.

Joshimath is a hilly town situated on the Rishikesh-Badrinath National Highway (NH-7) in Uttarakhand, and tourists travelling to Badrinath, Auli, and Valley of Flowers usually take an overnight stop at Joshimath. But unfortunately, the town’s foundation is highly unstable as it stands on the debris of an ancient landslide.

The town is located on a running ridge that is traversed by running streams with a high gradient from Vishnuprayag, a confluence of the Dhauliganga and the Alaknanda rivers, which makes its location even more risky for residential construction.

The scientists and geologists working in the area have been raising alarms about these risks for decades because of the unplanned construction in the area.

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