SRINAGAR, July 23 -- Apni Party president Syed Mohammad Altaf Bukhari on Wednesday urged the government to assess whether human activities had contributed to the severity of the recent natural disasters in Jammu and Kashmir and called for immediate as well as long-term corrective measures if environmental degradation was found to be a factor.
In a statement, Bukhari said experts should examine whether environmentally harmful practices had intensified the impact of the ongoing calamities across the Union Territory.
He said the assessment should examine factors such as encroachment of water bodies, construction on fragile mountain slopes, deforestation, excessive extraction of sand, gravel and stones from riverbeds and hills, and other acti...