The latest devastating landslides in Kerala’s Wayanad district, leading to at the very least 193 deaths and quite a few people being trapped, underscore the pressing want for rapid micro-level mapping of landslip hazard zones all through the state. This proactive measure is essential for catastrophe preparedness and response.
Moreover, it underscores the intense significance of relocating and rehabilitating folks residing in environmentally weak hazard zones, as failure to take action may result in additional lack of life and property.
The state authorities has repeatedly ignored this important concern because the devastating floods in 2018 precipitated quite a few landslides in hill districts like Wayanad and Idukki.
Regardless of excessive climate occasions turning into an annual actuality within the state for the final six years, this urgent concern has persistently been relegated to the again burner.
The Western Ghats, which run all through Kerala, are vulnerable to frequent landslides throughout the biannual monsoon seasons—the South West monsoon and the North East monsoon. In contrast to different pure hazards, landslides may be triggered by varied components, equivalent to slope failure, heavy rainfall, soil depth, earthquakes, thunder, and human actions.
Learn extra: Wayanad landslides: 160 bodies recovered, rescue operations underway | 10 points
Anthropogenic components embrace loading the slope’s crest, excavation on the toe of the slope, deforestation, quarrying, mining, and land use patterns, which additionally irritate it.
Nevertheless, the principal triggering issue is the heavy, aggressive rainfall that’s quick.
The primary formally recorded flood in Kerala occurred in 1881, and the oldest recognized landslide in Kerala occurred on October 4, 1882, at Meladukkam, Kottayam.
Residents of Kodiyathoor, close to Kottayam, got here up with the phrase “Urulpottal” (particles move) in 1949 after a landslide within the hilly space.
Landslides happen when part of a hill strikes down. Consultants say that in Wayanad’s Chooralmala and Mundakkai, the phenomenon of Soil Piping performed an essential position in inducing the landslides.
They are saying the floor soil within the space is unconsolidated and unsorted. In such soil, rainwater causes underground move, eradicating the clay content material and inflicting interconnected tunnels. These interconnected tunnels act as paths for large water discharge and soil erosion, and they’re known as piping.
Within the case of Wayanad, environmental specialists, together with these within the Madhav Gadgil committee, had known as for the rehabilitation of individuals residing on weak hill slopes with an incline of over 22 levels, given the potential for widespread landslips and landslides. These specialists discovered the areas weak, together with the place the landslides occurred on Tuesday.
In recent times, the state catastrophe administration authority divided the hill district into three primarily based on landslide susceptibility danger and has additionally come.
With a landslide susceptibility map for the district. Nevertheless, rehabilitation was not initiated regardless of repeated warnings of lurking excessive climate occasions.
Knowledgeable research that the state authorities commissioned instructed establishing separate catastrophe administration programs.
Motion plans for panchayats labeled below the district’s excessive, medium, and low classes for landslide susceptibility.
A research by the Kerala Sasthra Sahitya Parishad, a preferred science discussion board, discovered that the district’s hill slopes have change into unstable. Following the constructions carried out on the slopes by unscientifically levelling the slopes, many areas have change into landslide-prone after digging rainwater harvesting pits and adjustments in land use patterns like monocropping and deforestation, which have continued for many years.
In line with the authority, Meppadi, Muppainad, Vythiri, Pozhuthana, Vellamunda, Thondernad, Mananthavady, Thirunelly, Muttil, and Kottathara are listed as locations at excessive danger of landslides. Chooralmala and Mundakkai have a protracted historical past of huge landslides, and the crop tea plantations have considerably contributed to the tragedies unfolding through the years.
CK Vishnudas, the chief director of the Hume Centre for Ecology, emphasised the necessity for rapid consideration to rehabilitating people residing in high-risk areas.
As acknowledged within the Gadgil Committee report, Kavalappara in Malappuram district and Puthumala in Wayanad district, which witnessed a number of fatalities attributable to landslides in 2020, are included within the Ecologically Fragile Land (EFL) class.
A disaster occurred once more within the areas designated as Ecologically Fragile Land (EFL) within the report Gadgil gave to the then-Union forest-environment minister, Jairam Ramesh. By the way in which, the space between Puthumala, Chooralmala, and Mundakkai is slightly below two kilometres.
In 2011, the Western Ghats Ecology Professional Panel (WGEEP) formally recognized this space as having the best ecological sensitivity and named it Ecologically Delicate Zone (ESZ) 1.
Quarrying, the method of extracting supplies from the earth, the destruction of hills for building functions, the development of large-scale roads, the enlargement of land in hilly areas, and the cultivation of a single crop over an enormous space all contribute to the prevalence of landslides. Local weather change makes these landslides worse by intensifying the continual, heavy rainfall.
These display the dearth of a nationwide coverage addressing the vulnerability of individuals residing in ecologically weak areas to annual landslides and floods.
T V Sajeev, a principal scientist on the Kerala Forest Analysis Institute, states that quarrying, the destruction of hills for building functions, intensive street building and enlargement in hilly areas, and the cultivation of single crops are vital components contributing to landslides brought on by heavy and steady rainfall.
CP Rajendran, a geoscientist and professor on the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Superior Scientific Analysis in Bengaluru, asserts that Kerala urgently wants to determine unambiguous land administration and water utilization laws.
As well as, it’s crucial to develop enduring measures to mitigate the affect of yearly floods and landslides, notably affecting impoverished people residing in environmentally weak areas.
He emphasises the necessity to pay larger consideration to altering land use patterns and implementing large-scale initiatives with vital environmental penalties.
Rajendran states that the state should implement land use zoning restrictions, together with information on landslip susceptibility. Kerala encompasses roughly 19,000 sq. km of hilly terrain with slopes above 10 levels. “These areas exhibit sparse vegetation cowl and have skilled vital disruption attributable to human actions,” he acknowledged.
Moreover, he believes {that a} map indicating the susceptibility of landslides will help the state comprehend the kind and extent of potential landslides in varied areas.
Hydrogeologist V R Haridas states that landslips and comparable phenomena have just lately occurred in Kerala. Due to this fact, the state should develop long-term measures to cope with this concern successfully. Having carried out an intensive investigation of the Kavalappara and Puthumala landslides as a part of the Nationwide Financial institution for Agriculture and Rural Improvement’s (NABARD) Local weather Adaptive Venture, this knowledgeable believes that the soil composition in Kerala has seen vital and dramatic adjustments.
“The altered soil composition seems unable to endure intense rainfall.” The adjustments which have taken place prior to now three years have been constant. “With out complete and scientific approaches, landslides leading to vital casualties would happen yearly,” he acknowledged.
He means that monocropping might have contributed to the state of affairs in Pettimudi, whereas indiscriminate granite quarrying is the first trigger in different areas, equivalent to Wayanad, Pathanamthitta, and Malappuram.
Das reviews that Wayanad is presently experiencing a state of affairs the place the slopes of the hills have been saturated attributable to exceptionally heavy rainfall prior to now week.
“If the rainfall continues, there’s a real hazard that it may trigger lateral displacement and lift the chance of the overburden slipping,” he states.
In line with the Kerala Catastrophe Administration Authority, the prevalence of landslides shouldn’t have been sudden. Within the final week, there was a big enhance in rainfall within the high-range districts of Kerala, which embrace Wayanad, Idukki, Malappuram, and Kottayam.
Frequent tectonic exercise, coupled with fluctuating climate patterns ensuing from world warming, are recognized as causative components for pure disasters, equivalent to landslides, within the Himalayan area. “We should conduct scientific analysis on tectonic actions in Kerala, notably within the increased elevations of Idukki,” Mohan acknowledged.
In line with a latest research by the Kerala College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences (KUFOS) in partnership with Michigan Technological College and the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune, roughly 13% of Kerala’s land is extremely prone to landslides.