Why Joshi math is sinking? The recent trouble in Joshi math, is it a man-made disaster or a natural calamity? Though blaming each other is going on, let us still find out why these settlement cracks are becoming prominent.
By the way, this podcast shall be treated as an academic work not to be correlated with any political mandate.
How this Himalayan mountain was formed, let us visit history a bit.
50 -60 million years ago 2 large plates came closer to the Tethys ocean. Indian continental plate moved towards the Eurasian continental plate. Because of this movement, the bed-level soil sediment crust between the plates formed the mountain Himalayas. This oceanic bed soil is very loose by its source as oceanic sediment.
This Indian continental plate is still moving towards the Eurasian plate, and therefore, the Himalayan mountain is gradually becoming higher. During this movement, seismic tremors cause multiple earthquakes, which we all know.
So primarily, it is a natural phenomenon that we can not escape. So what went wrong, and how went wrong?
This underlying soil profile of Joshi math is extremely loose, and therefore its bearing capacity is very low, and the engineering behavior of this soil changes with %age of the water inside it.
Since River alakananda flows heavily through Joshi math, it has many narrow & micro water channels seeping through the soil, and the change of the water level in the river, it affects the bearing capacity of the soil.
You may experiment in your house with a handful amount of Wheat flowers over a newspaper sheet and shape it like a conical shaped mountain and then add a few drops of water and see the mountain made of wheat-flower will slowly lose its height. The same way the soil of Joshi math is behaving.
Now the question is why it happens after so many years of existence. It is happening now because of some over-exploiting man-made activities; before going into that, let me explain two forces in Geologic evolution.
Endogenic force
Exogenic force
Endogenic force is created by nature to develop and adjust the earth's plate to create more hills, lakes, mountains, deserts, etc. It is a natural adjustment by the mother earth
Exogenic force is the external force that comes from rain, snow, flood, man-made activity like construction, etc. Exogenic forces are more dangerous than endogenic forces. So, in a nutshell, we can conclude that nature should not be overexploited, and we have to find a balance between development and protecting nature.
So sustainable development is a must in today’s context otherwise, nature’s fury might end up killing our development in no time.
