Joshimath crisis: Cracks develop in GMVN guest house

Joshimath: Cracks have developed in the walls of Garhwal Mandal Vikas Nigam's (GMVN) guest house in the holy city of Joshimath in Uttarakhand.

The cracks were noticed in the building, located near Gandhi Maidan, on Wednesday by a team of officers and scientists who had been staying in the guest house, after arriving in the city to study the causes of the land subsidence in Joshimath and to find ways to deal with it.

As soon as the cracks were detected, the employees informed the District Tourism Officer of Chamoli.

Earlier, slight cracks had been seen in the walls of four rooms on the first floor of the guest house which have now increased.

The cracks have now emerged on the walls of other rooms and offices.

The tiled floor in some areas of the ground floor has started breaking up.

Following this, the building is likely to be declared unsafe soon.

Fine cracks have been noticed in the Sanskrit College buildings, being used as relief camps for the 23 affected families shifted there.

A local resident said that the cracks were old and similar cracks could be seen all over the city.

Apart from this, cracks have appeared in the buildings behind the police station.

A policeman said that there is a big pit behind the police station where the cracks have increased in two days.

So far, 258 families have been shifted to safer places, including 8 families who were shifted on Wednesday.

Chamoli DM Himanshu Khurana said that orders have been issued to demolish the unsafe buildings in a scientific manner.

According to the daily report released by the District Disaster Management Authority, Chamoli, on the land subsidence, 849 buildings have been affected in 9 wards of the city, out of which 181 have been marked unsafe.

So far, 865 persons belonging to 258 families have been shifted to safer places by the district administration.

As part of the relief work, an amount of Rs 327.77 lakh has been distributed to 500 affected people.

So far, 708 food kits, 531 blankets, 926 litres of milk, 55 heaters/blowers, 79 daily use kits, 48 pairs of shoes, 110 thermal wear, 171 hot water bottles, 458 woollen caps, 280 socks, 149 shawls and 262 other material have been provided to the affected as relief, stated the report.

Apart from this, a health check-up of more than 707 persons living in relief camps has been done by the Health Department.

The health check-up of 51 animals and distribution of 50 animal feed bags was also done in the affected areas.