News Kashmir Desk
Weather vagaries have become order of day in Kashmir over the past few decades. Few weeks back the valley of Kashmir was reeling under one of the prolonged dry spells and now from past two to three weeks the snowfall is happening nonstop giving rise to avalanches and frequent blockade of road and air links to the Valley of Kashmir.
Especially, the second spell of continuous heavy snowfall in Kashmir has brought the life in Valley to standstill and most of the mountainous areas remain cut off. Statistics say it all – Gulmarg received 5.6 feet, Tangmarg 3 feet, Baba Reshi 4 feet, Kunzar 2 feet, Pattan 10 inches, Chandoosa 2.9 feet, Boniyar 2 feet, Baramulla 21inches, Macchil 3 feet, Z-Gali 3.6 feet, Keran 2.6 feet, Furkiyan 3.6 feet, Karah one feet, Sadna 3.6 feet, Kupwara 2 feet, Lalpora 2.6 feet, Sogam 2.6 feet, Kralpora2 feet, Handwara 1.6 feet, Zachaldara 2.6 feet, Wudar Bala 3 feet, Kalamabad 2 feet, Mawar 3.6 feet, Nowgam 4 feet, Bangus 10 feet,
Pertinently, the summer 2014 saw Kashmir witnessing one of the horrible floods in its history. As a matter of fact, In September 2014, the Kashmir region suffered disastrous floods across many of its districts caused by torrential rainfall. The Jammu and Kashmir state and adjoining areas received heavy rainfall from 2 September 2014 onwards, during last stage of monsoon in India. This triggered flooding and landslides in India and the adjoining areas of Pakistan. On 5 September, the Jhelum River in Srinagar was reported to be flowing at 22.40 feet (6.83 m) which was 4.40 feet (1.34 m) above the danger mark and at 33 feet (10 m) at Sangam in Anantnag district above the danger mark. The discharge rate in the river was recorded as 70000 m3/s against the normal discharge of 25000 m3/s.
On the otherhand, the grave scenario with reference of climate has hit us hard at a time when in Kashmir the overall paradigms are quiet terrible with reference to ecological balance as we have lost several valuable environmental resources especially waterbodies and forest cover.
Over the past few decades, we have lost a bulk of wetlands and lakes. The phenomenon of deforestation has increased. Many are opining that as we have lent a great blow to our natural resources and thus the abnormal climate patterns like increased rainfall, flooding, high temperatures have augmented.
Bilal Bashir Bhat, a Journalist while talking to News Kashmir on the topic of weather vagaries and Kashmir states – “ Over the past few decades we have seen Kashmir losing forest cover at alarming pace due to multiple reasons; water bodies have dwindled and constructions have boomed in fragile environmental zones . I believe we are losing our ecological balance and that finally results into weather vagaries . Noted reports are already pointing towards looming dangers. There is also global warming on global level that impacts every region. We need to increase our forest cover coupled with conserving water bodies and other natural resources to avoid fury of nature in form of weather vagaries and other disasters. “
Undoubtedly, weather vagaries are becoming a frequent occurrence in ecologically fragile beautiful valley of Kashmir.
