FARMER Shiv Lal barely slept last week, overcome by worry about the deep cracks scarring his land and hundreds of other homes and buildings in a sinking town in India's Himalayas.
On Jan 2 and 3, Lal and other residents of Joshimath in northern Uttarakhand state woke to find large cracks running through their walls and floors.
Outside, roads and walkways had caved in and cracked as the land beneath them shifted.
"I've moved my grandchildren and wife to the nearby school because our home isn't safe," Lal said as he stood outside the abandoned house on his plot, which he visits every day and longs to return to.
Like many others in the town, which lies more than 1,800m above sea level, Lal blames the damage on a hotel construction boom and tunnelling for a nearby hydroelectric project being built by India's state-run power utility, NTPC.
India is striving to boost its hydropower production to help meet a target for overall clean energy capacity of 500 gigawatts (GW) by 2030.
Hydropower currently accounts for about 13 per cent, or 47 GW, of the country's total power generation capacity.
Residents' protests have reignited debate about the construction of hydropower projects in Himalayan areas.
Uttarakhand, which is prone to flash floods and landslides, has more than 10 operational hydropower projects, with another 75 being built, among them NTPC's Tapovan-Vishnugad plant, officials at the state's Renewable Energy Department said.
Experts have warned for years that large-scale construction work, including hydropower projects, in and around Joshimath, could lead to land subsidence, that is, the sinking or settling of the ground surface.
Joshimath is located on a hill slope, and sits on the debris of old landslides.
The small town is the gateway to Hindu and Sikh shrines and a pit-stop for trekkers and skiers drawn to nearby slopes when it snows, fuelling construction activity.
Until this month, bulldozers were being used to widen the road to the town to improve access. Following the protests of recent weeks, the roadworks were halted.
Officials and geologists examining the damage in Joshimath think 2021 flash floods that washed away the Rishiganga mini-hydropower project and claimed nearly 200 lives were the trigger to Joshimath's present-day troubles.
Swapnamita Choudhury Vai-deswaran, a scientist with the Dehradun-based Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, a research organisation, said the NTPC tunnel was too far away to be responsible for the cracks.
NTPC officials said rampant construction in Joshimath had caused the subsidence, not the tunnel they were constructing.
Local authorities have moved about 170 families to lodges, hotels, schools and the city council building for safety, marking 128 of about 4,500 buildings with a red cross, indicating they are unsafe to inhabit.
"We cannot be herded like animals to some land. We want a one-time settlement," said folk singer Darwan Naithwal, 56, who left his three-storey home to live in a hotel last week after he failed to seal the cracks on his walls with cement.
Many property owners living in shelters return to their homes every day to assess the damage or simply try to come to terms with their losses.
Lal said: "I keep going to the school shelter and coming back. Last night, I managed to lie down at 4am when I felt it was safe to close my eyes for a bit. All I want is to continue living here."
The writer is from the Reuters news agency