Srinagar: When the rains stopped on the evening of August 26, a crack appeared on the bedroom wall of Mohd Asif, father of two children and an engineering graduate from Kheri village on the outskirts of Jammu city.Asif, who is preparing to appear in competitive exams for government jobs, said that the crack had widened and spread to the walls of the lobby and kitchen when he woke up the next day. Then, as the day progressed, the earth began to swallow his uncle’s house next door.“Our house has become unliveable and our land too is gone. The ground has burst open and there are cracks more than a foot wide. At some places, the land has sunk 15-20 feet. We don’t know what to do,” Asif, whose father is a dairy farmer, told The Wire over phone.Recent record rainfall has caused land subsidence in Kheri, an old, hilly village nestled some 15 kms from the main city of Jammu in the foothills of Shivalik range of mountains. At least 19 residential buildings and several animal shelters have been rendered uninhabitable due to land subsidence, which has blocked the road to the village at several places, while power and water supply has also been hit, per officials.Javed Ahmad, a resident of Kheri, standing in the cracked compound of his house which has been damaged in land subsidence. Jehangir Ali/The WireThe villagers of Kheri which has population of 750 per Census 2011 are mostly livestock rearers and dairy farmers who grow wheat, mustard, rice, maize and other crops in their farms, hundreds of kanals of which have been impacted by the calamity.“Most residents have small land holdings which sustain their families and animals. Due to the land subsidence which has been going on since last three weeks, there are fears that the village might be wiped off the map,” said Sarfaraz Ahmad, an activist from Jammu.“No one in the village is safe anymore,” Dharminder Singh Manh, former sarpanch of Keran panchayat, said, “Some government officials distributed five tents in the name of relief some days ago but nearly two dozen families have lost their homes. Where will they go? The government has failed them”.Keran panchayat has reported land subsidence in at least two other villages, according to Manh. An official, who didn’t want to be named, said that more than one and half sq.km. area in Kheri has been affected by land subsidence.Jammu ring road project to blame?Some locals who spoke with The Wire alleged that the land situation started to change after the National Highway Authority of India began work on the Jammu ring road project, the foundation stone for which was laid by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on May 19, 2018.The four lane road was projected to cost at Rs 2,023.87 crore and touted as a game changer for decongesting Jammu, J&K’s winter capital. The Union road ministry and the National Highway Authority of India have described the new road as a “green highway”.The project, executed by a joint venture of Gayatri Projects Ltd and Kyivmetrobud, a Ukraine based company, involves boring through the heart of the sub-Himalayan mountains of Shivalik range to build two tunnels which connect Khari with Nagrota and Bhalwal.Additionally, eight major bridges and six flyovers are being built and several kms of mountain cutting has been undertaken to lay down the 58.25 km-long road network around Jammu city. The project is slated for completion by March 31 next year.Asif, whose family’s farmland spread over 10 kanal land has been damaged by land subsidence, said that the construction site of the two tunnels is barely 200 metres downhill from Kheri.The construction site of the two tunnels which are being bored through Shivalik range of mountains in Jammu with the village of Kheri in the upper reaches. Photo: Jehangir Ali/The WireResidents alleged that the situation changed after tunnel boring machines were put to work at the site.“When the machines began operating, we could feel the ground vibrating. Some months ago, there was a massive landslide but no one in the village had imagined what was coming our way,” Sahil Khan, a resident of Kheri who works with a private food delivery company in Jammu city, said over the phone.Khan, whose family is living in a tent, added: “Our house was built by my father after years of hard work which has turned into rubble overnight”.“The cracks in the ground have surfaced from the area where tunnels are being built. Everyone in the village knows this,” another resident, who wished to stay anonymous, said.Around three weeks after Asif noticed the crack on his bedroom wall, even though power and drinking water supply has been largely restored to Kheri, the local administration is struggling to assess the expanse and the causes of land subsidence.Despite repeated attempts, deputy commissioner Jammu Rakesh Minhas didn’t respond to queries about why the administration hasn’t surveyed the village so far. The officials of the Gayatri Projects Ltd, which is based in Andhra Pradesh, couldn’t be reached for comment. The official contact numbers mentioned on the company website are out of order.Khan’s house is among nearly two dozen residential structures which have suffered extensive damage due to land subsidence, forcing his family to live in one out of five tents distributed by the local revenue department officials. But, worried over the fate of their cattle like buffaloes, sheep and goats, most affected families have turned down the government’s offer to shift to a government school in the village.Following recent flooding, many schools continue to remain shut across Jammu and Kashmir. According to official estimates, around 12,000 km of road length has suffered damage across the Union Territory due to the flooding caused by torrential rains.The sunken remains of an under construction residential building in Kheri village. Photo: Jehangir Ali/The WireFour roads linking Kheri and two adjoining villages with the main highway have been closed since the tragedy struck, said Manh.Sub-divisional magistrate of Jammu (north) Aman Kumar Anand said that some of the affected families in Kheri have been compensated in accordance with the disaster relief norms under which the owner of a fully or severely damaged house gets Rs 1.2 lakh compensation.“Some families haven’t got the compensation yet,” Anand admitted, refusing to comment on the impact of the tunnel construction on the village “It is unfair to link the project to land subsidence without a proper study. We are trying to clear the roads which have been damaged severely at three places. A lot of land has been affected also”.Anmol Ahri, a Jammu-based environmental activist, said that the destruction unfolding in the Himalayan region in Jammu and Kashmir was predicted by climate scientists and official reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the World Bank and the Government of India.“This kind of devastation was bound to happen. Intense rains will become a new normal in coming months and years and we will not be able to withstand these changes because our developmental projects are built from military and economic perspective rather than climate change perspective,” Ahri said.Ahmad said that an independent probe should be ordered immediately to ascertain the cause of land subsidence and fix accountability. He said that the government should recognise the tragedy as a manmade disaster rather than a natural calamity.“The compensation given by the government to some families is not enough considering that they have lost both their homes as well as land. The affected community needs fair and sufficient support so that they can resume their lives,” he said.