Photo 15/7

Red quarter-leather album (rebound) measuring 272 x 365 mm, with prints mounted on page with letterpress captions and photographer credit. Prints 1–43 are credited to 'Overseer Hira Khan', prints 44–60 to 'H.S. Wildeblood, Ex. Engr.', with an additional note that Wildeblood's negatives have been placed with the photographic firm of G. Lawrie and Co, Lucknow. The name S. Crookshank RE also appears above most of the prints from 40 onwards, but it is not clear whether this indicates a contribution to the photography of these pictures (Lieutenant Sydney D'Aguilar Crookshank, and engineer with the PWD, received a commendation from the government of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh for his services in connection with the Gonha Flood Operations).

The album records, in a series of before and after photographs, the effects of the washing away in 1894 of the dam that had created the lake at Gohna during the previous year's rains. A description of these events, abstracted from Government of India Public Works Department Reports, appears in vol. XII of The Imperial Gazetteer of India (1908). This gives a concise account of the disaster and is reproduced here: 'Towards the end of the rains in 1893 two landslips took place on the right bank of the Birahi Ganga, a tributary of the Alaknanda. The side of a steep hill, towering 4,000 feet above the level of the stream, crashed down into the valley, hurling large blocks of limestone against the opposite cliff to the distance of a mile in places, and forming a dam more than two mile long at the base and one-third of a mile along the top, which completely blocked the valley to a height of 850 to 900 feet. It has been estimated that the dam contained 9 billion cubic feet of dolomite and detritus, weighing 800 million tons. Special arrangements were successfully made to avoid the damage to life and property to be expected when the water should reach the top of the dam and commence to cut it away. The pilgrim road to the shrines in the Upper Himalayas lies close along the line of escape, and bridges were dismantled and diversions constructed. At Hardwar it was necessary to protect the head-works of the Ganges Canal. In December, 1893, the area of the lake was about one square mile and its depth 450 feet. By July, 1894, the lake had become a large sheet of water, nearly four miles long and half a mile broad, and the level of water had risen nearly 170 feet, while percolation was freely taking place. A month later the water was rising about 4 feet a day, and on the morning of August 25 water began to trickle over the dam, which was rapidly cut away. It was found next day that the level of the lake had fallen [to?] 390 feet, leaving a stretch of water 3,900 yards long with an average breadth of 400 yards. The depth near the dam was 300 feet, and the bed had already silted up about 85 feet. Immediately below the dam the flood rose 280 feet, but its height rapidly decreased as the channels of the river which carried it off widened. At Rudraprayag, 51 miles away, the rise was 140 feet; at Beasghat, 99 miles, 88 feet; and at Hardwar, 149 miles, only 11 or 12 feet. The total damage caused to public property was valued at more than Rs. 95,000, but no lives were lost except those of five persons who insisted on remaining just below the dam. At Hardwar the head-works of the Ganges Canal were slightly damaged, but beyond this point the flood had no appreciable effect. The outlet of the lake now appears to have a stable bed'.