Thursday, 19 January 2023 | PNS | DEHRADUN
In an important development in the ongoing investigations being done by various agencies to find the causes of land subsidence in Joshimath and suspected role of tunnel of NTPC in the crisis, the National Institute of Hydrology (NIH) has found that the profile of water in the NTPC tunnel and that is oozing out of ground in the city is different. This observation has been made by the NIH in its preliminary report after studying the water samples from both the places. The agency has however added that a detailed investigation is going on at present. Meanwhile the water discharge in the JP colony area of the city further reduced to 100 liters per minute (LPM) on Wednesday. At its peak the discharge was 540 LPM.
Giving information the disaster management secretary Ranjit Sinha said on Wednesday that detailed geotechnical investigations by different institutes of agencies are going on at present and nothing should be inferred from the preliminary report of NIH. Interacting with the media persons at the State secretariat on Wednesday Sinha said that the chief secretary SS Sandhu held a video conferencing session with the directors of different central agencies working in Joshimath on Wednesday. In the meeting the CS urged the directors and scientists of various technical institutes working in Joshimath to study the affected area on immediate basis and make the study report available at the earliest. It was decided that the institutes should also share their study reports with each other to weed out any incoherence and that the report should have clarity and they should also offer solutions. In response to a question Sinha said that the NTPC has not done any geotechnical study of Joshimath and its investigation was limited to the tunnel area only. He said that till now cracks have been noticed in 849 buildings and the survey work is in progress. A total of 258 families have been temporarily displaced so far by the administration.
