India’s sinking holy town of Joshimath faces grim future: ‘a time bomb’

Hundreds of grey stacks of cement slabs lay around a village near Joshimath in India’s Himalayan mountain state of Uttarakhand. For months, residents in Joshimath, a holy town burrowed high up in India’s Himalayan mountains, have seen their homes slowly sink. They pleaded for help, but it never arrived. In January, their town made national headlines. Big, deep cracks had emerged in over 860 homes, making them unlivable. (Rajesh Kumar Singh / AP)

JOSHIMATH, India — Inside a shrine overlooking snow-capped mountains, Hindu priests heaped spoonfuls of puffed rice and ghee into a crackling fire. They chanted in Sanskrit, hoping their prayers would somehow turn back time and save their holy — and sinking — town.

For months, the approximately 20,000 residents of Joshimath — a town burrowed in the Himalayas and revered by Hindu and Sikh pilgrims — have watched the earth slowly swallow their community.