Homes Crack, Road Splits In Two As J&K Village Sinks

On Sunday morning, Bilal Ahmad was tending his shop when the four walls suddenly began to groan and creak. Before he could comprehend what was unfolding, the floor beneath his feet split open with jagged cracks.

“I was terrified and rushed out immediately. The ground beneath us was slipping away,” Bilal recalled, still shaken by the ordeal.

Just a few metres from his shop, a house collapsed within moments. Panic-stricken villagers poured out of their homes as the earth beneath them began to sink, triggering chaos across Kalaban village in Rajouri's Manjakote tehsil.

The road connecting Kalaban to the district headquarters has fractured into two, severing the village from the rest of the region.

“Yesterday the cracks in the road were narrow, but today they have widened alarmingly,” said Reyaz Ahmad, another resident.

The scene in Kalaban is grim: caved-in structures, homes riddled with gaping cracks, agricultural fields torn apart, and a massive crater where the main road once stood. Families here are losing their homes not to war or a sudden calamity, but to the earth quietly sliding away beneath their feet.

Land subsidence in the village began a week ago following an initial landslide and has continued unabated despite improved weather conditions.

The phenomenon has sparked widespread fear and caused large-scale property damage. Villagers have lost hundreds of kanals of fertile land, and dozens of structures have been rendered uninhabitable.

Deputy Commissioner Rajouri Abhishek Sharma, accompanied by a team of revenue officials, visited the site to assess the damage caused by the subsidence.

According to preliminary field assessments, three houses have already collapsed, while several others have developed severe cracks, making them unsafe for habitation. Many more structures are partially damaged and similarly unfit for living. Revenue officials remain on site to evaluate the extent of the losses.

The biggest fear now is the approaching monsoon.

“These structures are damaged to such an extent that they will not survive another spell of rain,” warned Munir, another villager.

Residents are urging the administration to provide immediate compensation for their losses and relocate them to safer locations.

Villagers allege that the subsidence is a direct consequence of National Highway construction in the area.

“Heavy machinery was used to cut into the land for the road. That loosened the soil, and now the ground is sinking, making this area dangerous to live in,” claimed one local.

With the monsoon approaching and the ground still shifting, Kalaban waits anxiously for relief and rehabilitation.