OUR CRUMBLING HILLTOWNS

THE WAYANAD DEATH toll continues to rise. Frankly, I don’t even know the latest figures.

- Krishan Kalra

Army authorities, engaged in the massive rescue operation involving nearly 1,600 personnel, including those from the Police, Navy and the NDRF, do not expect to find many more survivors. Continuing rains, in any case, didn’t permit the operations to be faster. There could be loss of perhaps 600-800 innocent lives due to the unfortunate landslides. Loss of property and livelihoods probably can’t even be calculated. Satellite images, from the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) of ISRO had estimated that a mind-boggling 86,000 square metres of land slipped and the debris travelled several kilometres along the river, devastating many settlements on the way. Tragic calamity, to say the least.

Why Did This Happen?

Why did this happen and could it have been avoided?

Wayanad district, part of the Western Ghats, received 140 mm of rain in about 24 hours – five times its normal precipitation – during this period. The beautiful hill station, at an altitude of a little over 5,000 feet, attracts lots of visitors and, like all our hill towns, has witnessed ongoing construction over the decades to provide for the influx. The February 2023 Landslide Atlas of India released by ISRO, documents around 80,000 landslides across 17 States and two UTs in the Himalayas and Western Ghats, from 1998 to 2022. Wayanad was listed in the atlas as “vulnerable”.

An earlier landslide had also occurred around the same location. The Ecologically Sensitive Area (ESA) of about 60,000 square km, in the Western Ghats had been under study by a high