The flood ravaged Kedarnath temple - Reuters

Devastating floods in Uttarakhand once again draws our attention to the fact that we haven’t learnt our lessons from similar tragedies in the past (even if none had the scale of this order, maybe).
Wouldn’t we forget about Uttaranchal in a week’s time when newspapers will have something else to talk about, when politicians will be concerned about how to win the next elections, and the society, at large, will be more concerned about an updated version of a cellphone/fashion/film. It’s a strange society, this.
The state’s administration, ITBP and armed forces should be complimented for evacuating more than 40,000 people already to safer places. They need all the support, but we must admit: the more efficient they are, lesser is the pressure on us to beef up our preparedness. All disasters have similar challenges, not to mention some of the location-specific peculiarities.
After looking for life under the load of debris of fallen houses, hotels, guest houses, distributing essentials to survivors and once tourists and pilgrims have returned home, will other state and central authorities be so concerned in rehabilitating the affected communities? Can we use this opportunity of rebuilding infrastructure to also renegotiate a new social contract?