There Is Nothing Doubtful About What Is Imminent

The national newspaper KUENSEL reveals that a staggering Nu.3,950,000,000.00 (Nu.3.95B) is the amount reported as the financial irregularities in the hydropower sector. This means that in addition to being gagged and tied up in an eternal knot of economic bondage, every single Bhutanese - children, women, men, old, young, lame, mute, blind - have evidently been robbed of Nu.6,000.00 each, through all sorts of corruption and mismanagement.

That does not, however, seems to be our biggest worry. KUENSEL today reports that there was, yet again, a land slide at the PHPA I dam site that occurred on 22nd January, 2019.

KUENSEL's article on the landslide at the PHPA I dam site

How KARMIC and scary! Scary because my instincts don't seem to be misplaced - only two days earlier, I had gone to a small village called Japhu, with the express purpose of photographing Gaselo village that sits right above the dam site. Japhu village is on the other side of the Punasangchhu - right opposite Gaselo. For sometime now, I have been overcome by this instinctive feeling that sometime in the future the topography of Gaselo is likely to be altered beyond recognition, caused by construction activities down below, including a real possibility of a seismic activity. There is a need to capture and preserve an image of the village as it stands now, before we lose it all to the ferocity and devastation of nature. The following photographs were acquired on 20th January, 2019:

Gaselo village sits directly above the PHPA I dam site

PHPA Colony that sits right above the dam site 

Japhu village opposite Gaselo

For the past four years I have been hollering for the shutting down of the PHPA I. But it still stands - even as it is selectively ravaged by landslides and annual flooding of the Project's cofferdam, by the Punasangchhu. What worries me is the inconsequential and ineffectual attempt by the PHPA-I people to implement stabilization measures such as cable anchoring and reinforcing with cement concrete (RCC) micro-piling. These activities are obviously necessitated to mitigate a known and eminent danger of the right hill sliding down into the ravine. In other words, the project people are attempting to fight nature, instead of heeding its warnings.

The question is: can they?

I have been witness to cyclonic activities twice in my life - once in Japan and once in Thailand. I have seen the power and ferocity of nature - first hand. Against the might and wrath of nature, men can do nothing but be humbled by its power and scale of devastation. Men do not stand a chance against nature.

To me it seems like it is time to investigate the geology of whole of Gaselo, very seriously. Let us understand the extent of threat to life and property. If there is indeed a threat, let us be prepared for it. Do not forget that the whole of Gaselo area is located bang in the middle of a high to very high seismically hazardous zone. All it take is a minor jolt and a nudge, to bring everything tumbling down.

The seismic hazard map of Bhutan: there is nothing doubtful about what is imminent