By Shaurya Agarwal

Abstract 

On Wednesday, 30th July 2024,  consecutive landslides struck the Wayanad district of Kerala resulting in 239 deaths and an estimated 134 people missing as per the official statistics released by the government. These landslides are said to have been triggered by heavy rainfall that occurred consecutively for 48 hours before the landslides, amounting to 572 mm of water, surpassing all meteorological predictions curated by the government. Along with heavy rainfall, experts believe that unplanned developmental activities such as unscientific construction practices and disruptive plantation exercises directly contributed to the scale of the tragedy. This article examines the contextual factors leading to the Wayanad disaster on July 30th, 2024 and its aftermath. It highlights the need for policy actions aimed at improving disaster resilience through enhanced social inclusion and sustainable governance.  

Introduction 

In the 48 hours leading up to July 30th, the region of Mundakkai received a staggering 572 mm of rainfall, sending a torrent of mud, water and boulders crashing down that led to hillsides collapsing. The villages of Mundakkai Punjirimattom, Chooralmala, and Attamala in Kerala’s Wayanad district were destroyed due to this series of horrific landslides. The first landslide struck at 1 am, followed by another at 4:30 am, catching most victims in their sleep and leaving behind a trail of destruction. Landslides are a natural phenomenon that involve the downslope movement of rock, soil, and debris in mountainous or hilly areas. This article critically analyses the stages building up to the Wayanad landslide that took 239 lives, affected hundreds of families and further caused loss of vegetation, land and infrastructure. 

Landslides occur due to the coexistence of two types of factors: conditioning factors and triggering factors. Conditioning factors are related to the soil topography, rock structures and slope angles, among others, making some regions more vulnerable to landslides. Triggering factors include intense rainfall, and anthropogenic activities such as disruptive changes in land use, road and bridge building, haphazard and unscientific construction, and large-scale deforestation. In Wayanad’s case, both factors play a pivotal role as established by several studies conducted by multiple international institutes. Many of the studies list the government’s failure to sincerely adhere to the recommendations mentioned in the Gadgil report authored by the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) as a significant cause of the disaster’s scale.

How does Kerala’s geographic condition expose it to such disasters?

Wayanad’s location alongside the western ghats adds to the dangers of landslide susceptibility in the area. Wayanad district falls in the northeastern part of Kerala which, according to the Gadgil report, is an ecologically sensitive area as it is highly susceptible to landslides. India accounts for about 8% of global fatalities due to landslides. Where outside the Himalayan terrain, Kerala marks the most vulnerable state with over 14% of its land mass in the “very high susceptibility” category, according to the India Landslide Susceptibility Map (ILSM) developed by a team from IIT-Madras that worked on the phenomenon of landslides in India. Furthermore, the coastal location of the state exposes it to regular rainfall which in case of a burst can act as a triggering factor for landslides. Mundakkai and Chooralmala located in North Kerala’s Wayanad district, known for their hilly terrain and agricultural land also possess dense vegetation, streams, and steep slopes. This terrain makes the area prone to landslides during heavy rains.

What were the contributing factors to the multiple landslides in Wayanad beyond the extreme rainfall?

Experts have found that Wayanad’s vulnerability to landslides had been further exacerbated by human anthropogenic activities such as mining, unscientific construction and extensive plantations. Most of the landslides that take place in Kerala are around plantation areas, indicating a major triggering factor i.e. agricultural activities such as monocropping, where native trees that hold the topsoil to the bedrock are hacked. These trees are then replaced by big plantation crops, such as tea and coffee, which have shallow roots, exposing the soil to weather conditions and erosion, reports Abhilash, Director of the Advanced Centre for Atmospheric Radar Research (ACARR). Furthermore, people in these regions stay in valleys that lie between the mountains as the rest of the area is used for plantations and the unused swamps are used for building shelters for workers. Eventually, the swamps which formed the drainage system of the mountains, became heavily populated with workers, making their residences unsafe, claims Vishnudas (Director of HUME Centre for Ecology and Wildlife Biology) as the population of the plantation workers expanded in a manner that was not considerate of the ecological sensitivity of the landscape. Researchers also detail how land use trends such as the 62% reduction in forest cover and increased quarrying have likely made the slopes more susceptible to landslides. The Ministry of Earth Sciences reported that between 2014 and 2020, over 60%  of the 3,656 landslides that occurred in the country were in Kerala.

How does Climate change factor into this equation?

Climate change takes a crucial part in the equation as is evident from the cloudburst-like rainfall that took place in the small geographical area of Mundakkai forming a major trigger for the landslide. Scientists have linked these extreme weather events, characterised by sudden and intense rainfall, to the excess heating of the Arabian Sea’s surface due to global warming. As global temperatures rise, the Arabian Sea absorbs more heat resulting in faster evaporation that has led to a colossal increase in the moisture content in the lower atmosphere, causing frequent and intense downpours. 

Furthermore, a study done by  World Weather Attribution (WWA)  showed that heavy one-day rainfall events in the region have become 17% more intense over the past 45 years. “The Wayanad landslides are another catastrophic example of climate change playing out in real-time,” claims Mariam Zachariah (Environmental researcher at Imperial College London). One-day bursts of rain in Kerala will become another 4% heavier if the world does not move away from fossil fuels and global warming reaches 2º C, the study said. Climate models utilised in the study also highlight a 10 per cent increase in rainfall intensity attributed to human-caused climate change. “In today’s climate, which is 1.3°C warmer than pre-industrial levels, an event of this magnitude is expected about once every 50 years,” the report states.

The influence of human-led climate change on landslide disasters can also be spotted in the statement made by Sekhar Lukose Kuriakose (Member Secretary, Kerala State Disaster Management Authority). He explained how a similar landslide hit the same area in 1994 when the debris flow reached Chooralmala, but the human casualty was far less, about 14 people because habitation was sparse and the land-use pattern was different.

Could the tragedy have been mitigated by proactive and consistent government action as the government already had reports on how to rectify the situation?

Ecologist and Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) chairman Madhav Gadgil, reported  “The disaster in Wayanad as a man-made tragedy” and attributed it to “the Kerala government’s failure to implement crucial ecological recommendations”. He also “criticised the government for not adhering to the panel’s guidelines designed to prevent such disasters amid extreme climate changes.” 

The Kerala government had rejected the WGEEP’s recommendations a decade ago over Wayanad’s long-standing population of agricultural workers, whom the State could not readily relocate. Climate change expanding the zones of threat to new areas warrants a State-level mechanism to plan, and regulate the migration of people in different parts of Kerala based on ecological planning and the needs of specific communities, for example, tribals. The State also has a dense population distribution, meaning poor planning quickly places many people in harm’s way. Another committee, headed by K. Kasturirangan, was formed to examine the report and suggest a way forward as the proposal to curb development activities was found problematic. 

The WGEEP report had recommended that 64% of Western Ghats be declared an ecologically sensitive area with varying degrees of protection. It also suggested a ban on mining, quarrying, and sand mining in sensitive areas. The report proposed stricter regulation of development activities in these zones, including restrictions on building activities. The diluted solutions proposed by Kasturigan were opposed by the scientific community as it had recommended that only 25% of the area should be preserved as ESAs ( Ecologically sensitive areas) and the geographical area highlighted here by the Kasturirangan committee consisted of natural parks and biospheres that were automatically reserved raising a lot of scientific concerns about the validity of the report. Which prolonged mitigation measures and delayed action from the government’s end, resulting in the catastrophic scale of the Wayanad tragedy.

Rescue Operation 

The rescue response was swift as on 1st August,  two days after the landslides, the Madras Engineering Group of the Army had built a 190-ft-long Bailey bridge linking Mundakkai to Chooralmala and the rest of the world in a record 71 hours enabling the mobilisation of more than 100 ambulances, doctors, and other medical staff that were deployed for medical support and treatment. The government had deployed more than 1200 rescuers of NDRF, Army, Air Force, Navy, Fire services, and Civil Defence, among others for rescue and relief operations at the landslides hit site in Wayanad. But even before the Central forces came onto the scene, the Kerala State Fire and Rescue Services personnel were able to create a temporary bridge with an extendable ladder which helped them rescue those who were trapped across the bridge in Mundakkai. An estimated 5,000 people are affected according to The Hindu. Mundakkai and Chooralmala together hosted over 4000 people. The disaster has roughly affected more than 730 families, tearing apart families whilst also resulting in a substantial loss of livelihood for most of the victims. This begs the question of whether this tragedy could have been avoided and if so to what extent mitigation measures need to be adopted to enhance the disaster risk reduction mechanisms in India. 

Rehabilitation 

Dr John Mathai, a senior scientist at the National Centre for Earth Science Studies, who led the study to evaluate the safety status of rehabilitation measures said: “We will submit a report to the state government, demarcating safe and unsafe areas. Our preliminary finding is that Punchirimattam and Mundakkai areas, which were the first to bear the brunt of the landslide, remain unsafe. At the same time, most parts of Chooralmala village downstream are safe.” Initially, there were 729 families in rehabilitation camps. Except for 219 families, the rest of them moved to rented houses or relatives’ homes. The Kerala government has declared that the Kudumbashree will prepare micro plans for each family in the disaster-affected areas. As part of this, 50 to 75 families will receive a community mentor. The government will give monthly rent to all these families. The government has repaired 75 government quarters where 83 families will be rehabilitated. The government has identified 177 houses where victims can be rehabilitated.  Relatives of 59 deceased received Rs 4 lakh from the State Disaster Response Fund and Rs 2 lakh from the Chief Minister’s Distress Relief Fund. An immediate assistance of Rs 10,000 was given to 691 families. Additionally, 172 families were given Rs 10,000 as funeral expenses.  Based on the government’s proposal banks have also agreed to provide Rs 25, 000 consumption loans to victims without obtaining security and announced that new loans will be sanctioned on liberal terms. The government announced that garbage disposal from disaster-affected areas is progressing well, with 12 tonnes of organic waste already cleared. The Suchitwa Mission has installed 94 bio-toilets in the disaster-affected areas and the camps.

Conclusion

“Wayanad highlights the importance of adaptation and the mistake of conflating mitigation with adaptation. Both have their place, but the need of the hour is to focus on the immediate challenge of adaptation whilst improving on mitigation measures. As the recent landslide broke out in an area some distance away from human interference, this infers a vital need for a comprehensive landslide monitoring and early warning system,” Vishnudas asserts. “The problem with the current susceptibility maps is that they only identify the source areas of landslides. But the runout distance should be integrated into disaster management plans to make them more efficient,” he added. Even a short warning time could be crucial which had not been timely facilitated to the Kerala state government despite Amit Shah’s claims as fact-checking indicates that only an orange warning was issued later in the evening of 29th July. In accordance with the NRDM guidelines only a red warning alert implicates the need for immediate action. The flow of debris of steel and concrete in the disaster also points out the need for the inclusion of vernacular and suitable construction methods which are considerate of the pressures of the landscape along with substantive investment in innovative technology for better disaster prediction mechanisms especially in the case of landslides.

The practical challenges of permanently relocating everyone from such sensitive areas should be considered and alert mechanisms calibrated to suit Wayanad’s geographical pressures should be developed. If such systems are implemented, casualties can be avoided by using temporary shelters in safer locations. “ The tragedy happened not because of human error but because of human negligence.” “If warnings had been taken seriously, there would have been enough time to move people out. Landslides can’t be avoided, but causalities can,” Vishnudas asserted. Statements made by government employees and on-ground experts report that people living in the relatively safer areas,  who found themselves on the track of the landslide were asked to move before the tragedy. But they were hesitant to move out because they didn’t know where to move and how as there are no proper shelters or consistently available shelters. “Often, they are moved to makeshift places or schools, which they try to avoid” Vishnudas explained “This must change. We need to ensure better, larger, and more efficient shelter facilities and build trust in the community” In the long run, the state must ensure that people living in vulnerable areas move out on their own accord by sensitising them about the dangers and providing adequate support for their resettlement. 

The way forward should consist of adequate rehabilitation measures for the affected population paired with suitable implementation of provisions of social inclusion mentioned in the national disaster management plan. The NDMP was updated by the government in 2021 to better incorporate principles of social inclusion to enhance the disaster resilience of disaster-prone zones in India. This endeavour shall include the establishment of adequate monitoring frameworks for tracking the implementation of rehabilitation provisions such as ensuring joint ownership in the name of husband and wife of houses reconstructed and assets provided under post-disaster recovery assistance. Measures like ensuring financial assistance like risk insurance along with livelihood assistance for tribal populations that are adversely impacted by climate-based disasters and further by the inequitable process of rehabilitation. Lastly, some focus points to enhance the disaster risk reduction framework should include developing a network of universities to study recent disasters and work on innovating technologies tailored to India’s landscape and terrain, while advocating for the inclusion of increased surveys that focus on the vulnerabilities of marginalised communities in the broader development plans. These frameworks combined with measures such as the mobilisation of vulnerable communities and capacity development at the regional level. That shall include features such as gender-sensitive curriculum, and institutional, human, community and technology applications can further enhance the disaster resilience of such areas, ensuring better safety and prospects for the populace amidst these trying times.

About the Author:

Shaurya Agarwal is currently in the final year of his liberal arts program at the Jindal School of Liberal Arts and Humanities. His research interest lies in the areas of environmental economics and public policy.