JOSHIMAT, India (AP) — At a shrine overlooking snow-capped mountains, Hindu priests heaped spoons of puffed rice and ghee into a crackling fire. They closed their eyes and sang, hoping that somehow their prayers would turn back time and save their holy—and sinking—city.
For months, the 20,000 or so residents of Joshimath, buried in the Himalayas and revered by Hindu and Sikh pilgrims, have watched the earth slowly engulf their community. They asked for help that never arrived, and in January their desperate plight thrust into the international spotlight.
But by this point, Joshimath was already a disaster area. Multistory hotels sagged; cracked roads gaped open. More than 860 homes were uninhabitable, torn apart by deep fissures. And instead of rescuers, they got bulldozers that leveled entire parts of the city.
The holy city was built on piles of rubble left by landslides and earthquakes. Scientists have been warning for decades that Joshimath might not withstand the level of heavy construction that has taken place recently.
“Cracks are getting bigger every day and people are scared. … It’s a time bomb,” said Atul Sati, an activist with the Save Joshimath Committee.
Joshimath’s future is in jeopardy, experts and campaigners say, in part because of a push backed by the prime minister’s political party to expand religious tourism in Uttarakhand, the holy city’s home state. In addition to climate change, extensive new construction to accommodate more tourists and to speed up hydroelectric projects in the region is exacerbating subsidence – the subsidence of land.
Joshimath is said to have special spiritual powers and it is believed that the Hindu guru Adi Shankaracharya found enlightenment in the 8th century before founding four monasteries across India, including one at Joshimath.
Visitors pass through the city on their way to the famous Sikh shrine Hemkund Sahib and the Hindu temple of Badrinath.
“It needs to be protected,” said Brahmachari Mukundanand, a local priest, who called Joshimath the “brain of North India” and explained that “our body can still function if some limbs are cut off. But when something happens to our brain, we can. It doesn’t work. … His survival is extremely important.”
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The city’s loose topsoil and soft rocks have limited support, and that limit may already have been exceeded, according to environmentalist Vimlendu Jha.
“In the short term, you might think it’s development. But in the long run, it’s actually devastation,” he said.
At least 240 families have had to move without knowing if they can return.
Prabha Sati, who fled Joshimath last month when her house began cracking and tipping over, came back for her belongings before state officials demolished her home.
“Now I have to leave everything behind. Every little piece of it will be destroyed,” she said, blinking back tears.
Ignoring experts’ warnings, authorities have continued to develop costly projects in the area, including a string of hydroelectric power stations and a long highway. The latter aims to further boost religious tourism, a key element of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party.
Uttarakhand, which is dotted with several holy shrines, would see a surge in tourist numbers over the next decade thanks to improved infrastructure, Modi said in 2021. Nearly 500,000 passed through Joshimath in 2019, government data shows.
A major draw is the Char Dham pilgrimage, in which pilgrims traverse challenging terrain and harsh weather to reach four perched temples. In 2022, 200 out of 250,000 pilgrims died on the journey. Authorities said the surge in visitor numbers is straining existing infrastructure.
The already ongoing Char Dham infrastructure project aims to make travel more accessible via a long and wide all-weather highway and railway line that would criss-cross the mountains.
Some experts fear the project will exacerbate the fragile situation in the Himalayas, where several cities have been built on rubble.
To create such wide roads, engineers would have to crush boulders, cut down trees and remove shrubs, which would weaken the slopes and make them “more vulnerable to natural disasters,” said veteran environmentalist Ravi Chopra.
While construction on the project near Joshimath was halted last month, locals feared it was too late. A long crack running across one of the front walls of the famous Adi Shankaracharya Monastery has deepened worryingly in recent weeks, said Vishnu Priyanand, one of the priests.
“Let places of worship remain places of worship. Don’t turn them into tourist attractions,” he pleaded.
It’s not just the freeways.
In late January, hundreds of residents protested against the National Thermal Power Corporation’s Tapovan hydroelectric power station near Joshimath.
“Our city is on the brink of destruction because of this project,” said Atul Sati, a member of the Save Joshimath Committee.
Locals say construction blasting for a 12-kilometer tunnel for the station is causing houses to collapse. Work has been suspended, but NTPC officials deny any connection to Joshimath’s sinking. Various government agencies were conducting investigations to determine what caused the damage, said Himanshu Khurana, the official in charge of the Chamoli district, where Joshimath is located.
The crisis has reignited the question of whether India’s push for more hydroelectric power in the mountains to reduce its reliance on coal can be sustainably achieved. Uttarakhand has around 100 hydropower projects in different stages.
The heavy construction required for hydroelectric power could wreak irreparable damage in a region already threatened by climate change, experts warn.
It could also displace entire villages, as residents of a village near Joshimath found out.
Haat on the Alaknanda River was once a sacred hamlet where Guru Adi Shankaracharya is said to have built another temple in the 8th century.
Today it is a landfill for waste and a storage pit for building materials, after the village was acquired by an energy company in 2009 to build a hydroelectric project.
The Laxmi Narayan Temple is the only part of the village that is still standing. All residents have been resettled, said Rajendra Hatwal, a former village headman who now lives in another town.
Hatwal and a few others are still dropping by the temple. A caretaker who refused to leave lives in a makeshift room next door. He sweeps the grounds, cleans the idols, and prepares tea for the odd guest or two who comes by.
They feared his days were numbered.
“We fight to protect the temple. We want to preserve our old culture to pass it on to a new generation,” said Hatwal. “They didn’t just destroy a village – they ended a 1,200-year-old culture.”
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AP photojournalist Rajesh Kumar Singh contributed to this report.
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The Associated Press’s religion coverage is supported by AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, funded by Lilly Endowment Inc. AP is solely responsible for this content.