The earthquake has ruptured this hilly terrain at a height of 5,000 metres above sea level, about 70 km away from Tehri on the Ghansali-Rudraprayag route. The crack which begins from the top of the hill runs through a road and a pucca house and then goes 3 km further down to Makhet.

The crack is not hairline. It looks more like a dark streak of lightning across the earth, waiting to swallow a score of villages situated at the foothills of the Himalayas between Ghansali and Rudraprayag.

A team of scientists, led by A K Pachori from Earth Sciences Department, University of Roorkee, has already left to examine the possibilities of landslide in the coming rainy season. The scientists are still studyingthe repercussions, but they have identified such cracks and marked it with white chalk. They are yet to give their final report.

Dilip K Paul of University of Roorkee said that the team is yet to return with its final results. But the initial observation by the scientists is that heavy rains may cause landslide owing to these cracks and thus the villagers should be moved to safer places.

Vikram C Thakur, Director of Dehradun-based Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, said that his institute too had sent a team to map the hilly surface, which has cracked. ``Even the Uttarkashi earthquake had triggered landslide at several places. This time too the earthquake has reactivated or generated new landslides at several places. We are now examining the nature of slope, condition of hydrology, movement of water and decay/fracture process of rocks at such ruptured surfaces to determine whether people living there should be moved to safer places,'' he said.

It was Ram Singh, who claimed to have first detected thecrack near Makhet. ``Our village is about three km down the slope and that's why we are more or less cut off from the others. But after the earthquake, I and some other villagers were climbing up towards the road. We noticed a crack on the way. We followed it and reached the top of the hill,'' he said.

Ram Singh and his fellow villagers come everyday to the road, where the earthquake relief parties leave some food, tents and tin sheet to construct new houses. Then Ram Singh and others carry them to the village. ``No government official has visited the village,'' he says. The hill slope is about 75 degree and one would have to walk down three km, he says.

At Makhet, the residents are living in anticipation of more earthquakes. Each family has been given two tin sheets. Since they cannot build a house with two tin sheets, three families together have constructed a makeshift house with six tin sheets and wooden planks.

The Indian Express team found at least six cracks on the route between Ghansaliand Rudraparyag. And the villages which are under threat from landslides on such hills are Batwari and Chaura in Tehri District, Kauntha, Bhanaj and Machkanti in Rudraprayag district. All these villages are not easily accessible. They are situated on the hill slopes and one has to walk at least a kilometre to reach these villages. Each village has 75 to 150 houses. Forest fires have compounded their problems, as animals have been coming down towards the inhabited areas. Rukmani, who lost her 19-year-old sister Pavitra Devi and grandmother in the earthquake, stays with her father and three other families in a tin shed, which has no doors. ``We have spotted a leopard in our area. We just cannot sleep at night for fear of dangerous animals,'' she said.