JOSHIMATH: Hotels and other buildings that developed cracks will be demolished within a week, said officials involved in the evacuation operations at Uttarakhand’s sinking town- Joshimath. The officer added that inflicted families would be given a compensation of Rs 1.5 lakh for their homes and businesses that will be demolished.
The announcement of the compensation came a day after residents on Tuesday protested ahead of the demolition of two hotels in the town, which have been earmarked as unsafe. Around 86 houses have been flagged as “unsafe” so far and will be demolished in the first phase of demolition. In addition to this, the administration has also marked two hotels – Mount View and Malari Inn – that would be demolished in the first phase.
A top government official has said that no new cracks have developed and old cracks have not widened due to the preventive steps taken in the past one week. “The good thing is that the water leakage near Jaypee Company is decreasing and it reached 250 LPM last evening. After January 7, no new cracks have developed and old cracks didn’t increase,” Secretary to the Uttarakhand Chief Minister said.
On Tuesday, Chief Secretary of Uttarakhand SS Sandhu held a meeting at the secretariat to discuss the landslides in Joshimath. He instructed the District Magistrate of Chamoli Himanshu Khurana to closely monitor the situation.
So far 731 houses have developed cracks because of the unplanned infrastructure and years of construction. Around 131 families have been moved to relief shelters.