Tourist Sites and Flash Flooding Are on a Collision Course
A warming planet is making it dangerous for religious devotees. India must act.
A cloudburst caused flash flooding in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand.
Source: Anadolu/Getty Images
It’s one of the world’s fastest-growing tourist sites, attracting more visitors than the Statue of Liberty, the Tower of London, or Pompeii. It’s also one of the locations most at risk from devastating natural disasters as our planet warms.
The Chota Char Dham, a circuit of four of the most sacred Hindu sites in the foothills of the Himalayas, has grown in recent years to become one of the biggest annual pilgrimages. With more than four million visitors every year, it attracts about 10 times as many religious tourists as Spain’s Camino de Santiago, and roughly twice as many as the Hajj in Mecca.