Hills can no longer absorb the shocks we inflict on them

IT often begins with people getting blindsided — a sudden flash of rain, roads washing away, homes buried and lives lost in minutes. The news channels scream: "Cloudburst in Himachal!" The image is complete, the verdict delivered. Yet, if we pause and peel the layers, we might discover that what we are witnessing is not always a cloudburst. It is something far more complex, and in many ways, far more disturbing.A cloudburst, as defined in meteorological science, is no ordinary downpour. It means rainfall of 100 millimetres in a single hour over a limited area. Such events are rare but catastrophic. In Himachal Pradesh, however, the word "cloudburst" has become a lazy shorthand for every extreme rain event.In June, when Thunag received heavy rain, the absence of an observatory left the cause to speculation. Was it a cloudburst or simply an unusually heavy spell of rain? We do not know. In Mandi Sadar, however, the record is clearer. There, the observatory clocked 50 mm of rain in an hour. Very high, no doubt. Dangerous, no doubt. But technically, not a cloudburst.This distinction matters. For if we confuse every instance of intense rainfall with a cloudburst, we obscure the real pattern. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has already warned us that extreme weather events will become more frequent under climate change. That does not mean cloudbursts will multiply endlessly. It means rainfall will come in sharper, shorter and more devastating bursts. To label them all as cloudbursts is to lose sight of the science, to build myths where we need facts.Yet, there is a deeper tragedy unfolding in Himachal. Heavy rainfall, whether 50 or 100 mm, should have meant swollen rivers and gushing rivulets. Instead, what we see rushing down the slopes is not just water, but muck. Muck that buries homes, clogs streams and destroys fertile fields. Where is this muck coming from?There are only two explanations. One, the reckless dumping of debris from construction — roads, four-lane highways, hydropower projects, even private houses — into valleys. Two, the soil itself is loosening. The very skin of the mountain is sloughing off. The sequestration levels of the land — its ability to hold water and keep itself intact — seem dangerously compromised. If this is true, then we are staring at a crisis much deeper than episodic floods. We are staring at a landscape that is losing its capacity to live.This raises a sobering question: are we confusing the natural violence of rain with the consequences of human tampering? Every landslide is not born in the sky. Much of it is seeded on the ground — by our bulldozers and our indifference. We may call it a cloudburst, but what actually bursts is the mountain itself, unable to bear the weight of unchecked "development."The temptation here is to say — stop everything. Halt road building, stop dams, freeze hillside housing. That would be the most drastic interpretation. But science demands caution, not panic. What we certainly need is closer observation, finer monitoring and stricter accountability. If muck is flowing where water should, then each project dumping debris must be held to account. If slopes are sliding where trees once held them together, then reforestation and land restoration cannot remain token gestures.The Himalayas are not merely scenery. They are a living, breathing system of geology, hydrology and ecology. Every cut in the hill, every stone dislodged, every tree felled, pushes this system closer to collapse. The cascading disasters we see in Himachal are not born solely of climate change. They are amplified, multiplied and accelerated by human action.Take the Mandi-Kullu highway: mountains cut in haste, muck dumped carelessly. When rains come, water mixes with debris and rushes down as slurry. Villages are swept away — not just by rain, but by negligence we mislabel as "cloudburst."This is why Himachal, and for that matter all Himalayan states, must rethink their strategies, something which the Supreme Court has also asked the authorities concerned to do. We cannot continue to believe that disasters are only "natural". The line between the natural and the human-made has blurred. If we treat every flood as an act of god, we absolve ourselves of responsibility. But if we recognise that our choices are complicit, then perhaps we can imagine a different future.That future demands restoration, not reckless expansion. It means strengthening natural drainage, instead of choking it. It means engineering that respects geology, not mutilates it. It means slowing down — because the mountain does not forgive haste. It may even mean saying no to projects that promise growth but guarantee destruction.The real question is this: can we continue to live in the mountains the way we have built them in the last two to three decades? Can we widen roads endlessly, dynamite the hills for tunnels, dump construction waste into rivers and still hope that the mountain will hold? Or, do we need a completely different imagination — one that restores, restitutes and rebuilds our relationship with nature, not just our infrastructure?There is also a moral weight to this. Every time muck buries a house, it is not just soil collapsing. It is a family's life’s work, memories and dignity erased. Every time a road caves in, it is not just asphalt lost — it is a community cut off from survival. To dismiss these as "cloudbursts" is not just scientifically sloppy, it is ethically careless. It trivialises both the science of the climate and the suffering of the people.The problem is not many cloudbursts, but cascading disasters born of reckless development meeting extreme rainfall. Naming it right is the first step towards wiser action.If we fail to do this, we will keep getting blindsided. The rains will come, as they always have. The news will shout of cloudbursts, as it always does. But what we will really be witnessing is our own folly, flowing downhill in muddy torrents.The mountain, after all, has its own language. It does not shout. It whispers in cracks, in slides, in streams turning brown. If we do not learn to listen, then no observatory will be enough. The statistics will tell us what we already know - that Himachal's disasters are not only written in the sky, but also carved by our hands.Perhaps, in that recognition, lies the only hope of saving both the science and the soul of the Himalayas.Tikender Singh Panwar is former Deputy Mayor, Shimla.

Hills can no longer absorb the shocks we inflict on them

Tikender Singh Panwar

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