Army relocates some troops from areas surrounding Joshimath

Indian Army Chief Manoj Pande said that some troops have been relocated from areas surrounding Joshimath which is near a disputed border with China. Pande didn’t give details on how many soldiers would be moved away for safety but said over 20 military installations around the town of Joshimath in the northern state of Uttarakhand have sustained 'medium to minor damage,' news agency Bloomberg reported.

“We remain prepared to relocate more units if required, but our operational preparedness remains intact,” Pande said in an annual address of the state of the army’s operations. “There has been no impact to our readiness.”

The gateway town for mountain expeditions and Hindu pilgrimage sites like Badrinath has seen rapid infrastructure growth plus massive tourist footfalls. This has, in turn, damaged its ecosystem and triggered frequent landslides and flash floods.


The area is also a key Indian garrison center to defend a large portion of the disputed 3,488-kilometer (2,170-mile) border with China known as the Line of Actual Control. India has over 20,000 troops and military hardware including artillery and missile systems located in the area.

A team of experts from CSIR-National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI) will be leaving for Joshimath in Uttarakhand, which witnessed land subsidence recently, to conduct subsurface physical mapping of the affected town, a senior scientist has said.

The 10-member team headed by NGRI's senior principal scientist Anand K Pandey is expected to reach the site on January 13 and start their work from the following day. The tests are expected to continue for two weeks, and the collated data would then be analysed to ascertain the reason for the sinking of the ground there.

Joshimath, the gateway to famous pilgrimage sites like Badrinath and Hemkund Sahib and international skiing destination Auli, is facing a major challenge due to land subsidence.

The number of subsidence-affected homes rose to 678 while 27 more families were evacuated to safety, a bulletin from the Disaster Management Authority in Chamoli said on January 9, adding that 82 families have been shifted to safe locations in the town so far.

The Centre on Tuesday had announced that it will install micro-seismic observation systems in Joshimath.