New Delhi: The landslide at Wayanad has once again exposed a lack of community and village-level warning systems as far as landslide and erosion was concerned. According to former senior advisor of National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) Brigadier (Retired) BK Khanna, major exploitation of nature as well as climate change has led to the disaster.
"The incident has once again shown the unabated exploitation at the western ghats. The geographical location of the place (hilly) makes it a very sensitive zone. In addition, a lot of construction activities took place at Wayanad making it more vulnerable to such natural calamity," said Brigadier (Retd) Khanna.
Terming the issue complex, Brigadier (Retd) Khanna added, "A lot of studies have been carried out, I am part of a National Landslide Forum. But lack of funds at the district level remains a sore point. Wayanad is Ooty of Kerala. Hilly area, with sharp slopes. Slopes are supposed to have natural drainage to flush out water into the river."
"Habitation has come up along the drainage area and more so at foothills. They were most affected. The debris, slush and rockfall destroyed the fragile infrastructure. Early warning was given for evacuation, some did, others stayed back and perished. There was no forced evacuation like they do for cyclones. Heavy rains (572 mm in 48 hrs) in the area of Western Ghats, where a lot of exploitation of nature due to deforestation and mining have been aggravated with climate change,” he said.
He said that early warning up to the community level, reduction of vulnerabilities and increasing preparedness are key to success for future disasters.
"Awareness of the community to perceived disasters is the main mitigation measure I would recommend. Provision of funds for mitigation and preparedness should be made available at village level," he said.
However, participating in a discussion over the Wayanad tragedy, Home Minister Amit Shah informed the Parliament on Wednesday that repeated warnings had been conveyed to the Kerala government regarding such landslides.
"The Government of India had issued an early warning to the Kerala government about a possibility of landslides seven days in advance. However, the Kerala government did not heed to the early warning and also did not get alerted even by the arrival of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) battalions," Shah said.
The Kerala Government was told that there would be heavy rainfall of more than 20 cm and there are possibilities of landslides potentially causing loss of life of property. "If those (opposition parties) making allegations had read the early warnings, then this situation would not have arisen," said Shah.
Shah said that many state governments have reported zero or near zero casualties in disasters using the Early Warning System. He said that a cyclone alert was sent to the Government of Odisha, seven days in advance, and only one casualty was reported. He further said that an alert was sent to Gujarat, three days in advance, and not a single animal was harmed.
Shah said that since 2014, the Government of India has spent Rs 2,323 crore on Early Warning Systems to ensure the safety and security of the people and alerts are being shared with all stakeholders.
"After Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister in 2014, work has been done to install the world's most modern Early Warning System. India is among the top four-five countries to have the capability to forecast disasters, seven days in advance. Most of the countries have capability to make such forecasts only three days in advance," he said.
However, the Wayanad incident has once again highlighted the existence of a landslide warning system in India. According to a research paper compiled by RKC, early warning systems have been recognised as an effective tool to reduce vulnerabilities and improve preparedness and response to hazards.
"The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2015–2030), an international document adopted by United Nations (UN) member states in 2015, requires countries to set out an early warning system with a multi-hazard approach by 2030," the research paper said.
It said that 4.3 lakh sq km area (12.6 per cent of the Indian landmass) is landslide-prone in India.
"The mountainous region of the north-western Himalayas (Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand), the sub-Himalayan terrain of the north-east (Sikkim, West Bengal-Darjeeling, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura), the Western Ghat areas (Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala) and the Eastern Ghat areas (Araku area of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu) are prone to landslides," it said.
It said that the Geological Survey of India (GSI) is set to have an early landslide warning system operational across the nation in 2026.
"The early landslide warning system started as a multidisciplinary, multi-agency team collaboration between three countries, and was led by researchers at the British Geological Survey and King’s College London. The UK, Italy and India took part in the project, called the LANDSLIP project, which was funded through a grant by the UKRI's NERC/FCDO Science for Humanitarian Emergencies and Resilience (SHEAR) program, between 2016 and 2022.
"In its early stages, the LANDSLIP project focused on two regions, the districts of Nilgiris and Darjeeling, and enabled authorities to receive daily forecast bulletins, regarding rainfall-triggered landslides during the 2020 and 2021 monsoon seasons," it said.
However, the Ministry of Earth Science, referring to the post-disaster investigations of the landslides in India said that the major trigger of landslides is due to unprecedented high rainfall.
"The other important geo-factors such as terrain character, slope forming material, geomorphology, land-use /land-cover in different terrain etc. are the preparatory factors for initiation of landslides. Anthropogenic causes such as unprotected slope cuts, blocking of drainages etc. have also been reported in many of the slides," the Ministry said.
The Geological Survey of India (GSI) under the administrative control of the Ministry of Mines collects data and keeps records of major landslides that occurred in different states and Union Territories, which have impacted lives and or infrastructure.
GSI’s Pilot Project For Landslide
GSI as part of the LANDSLIP project has developed an experimental regional Landslide Early Warning System (LEWS) based on rainfall thresholds pilot study areas including the Darjeeling district of West Bengal and the Nilgiris district of Tamil Nadu.
Since the 2020 monsoon, GSI started issuing daily landslide forecast bulletins during monsoon to the district administrations in these two pilot areas. Now GSI is in the process of extending similar endeavours in multiple landslide-prone states in India. In this connection, GSI has already extended the Landslide Early Warning System in Kalimpong district in West Bengal and Rudraprayag district of Uttarakhand and started issuing daily landslide forecast bulletins during monsoon to the district administrations.
