WAYANAD LANDSLIDES

Did Wayanad district admin ignore extreme rainfall readings in a high-risk landslide-prone zone?

Wayanad: Wayanad district administration which has taken pride in effective warning and evacuation system powered by community based rain monitoring system (CBRMS) is now facing flak for ignoring clear warning signs of landslide which has led to the most fatal calamity in the history of the state.

With the 24-hours rainfall of all landslide-prone zones crossing the 200 mm mark on Monday morning itself, the District Emergency Operating Cell (DEOC) was alerted for further action. Though there were enough red signals for a possible landslide, the district administration gave a namesake warning only by 10: 35 pm on Monday night, that too a message to people to be on alert. There was no mention on evacuation.

Even two days before the landslide happened, the Hume Centre for Ecology and Wildlife Biology, an NGO specializing in weather patterns of Wayanad with a network of more than 200 weather monitoring units, had warned of possible landslides in the landslide-prone zones of Puthumala, Mundakkai, Punchirimattam, Chooralmala, Thettamala, Kappikkalam and Thondanad. People living in ecologically sensitive zones of these areas should have been evacuated on a war footing, it was pointed out.

It is to be recalled that in the last 48 hours till Tuesday morning, the Mundakkai region had received 572 mm rain which is an alarmingly high rate of rainfall.

According to Hume Centre director CK Vishnudas the warning messages were already passed to the DEOC over a possible calamity in the Mundakkai-Puthumala-Chooralmala region as the rainfall data of 24-hours by Monday morning had crossed the 200 mm mark. '' We had information which we had passed to the authority concerned, especially hinting at the need for evacuation of villagers from Mundakkai. We have all information and data from all nook and corner of Wayanad and we are also giving the analytical interpretation of the data as well as alerts to the disaster management team,'' he said. 

Apart from the warning of Meppadi panchayat president K Babu,  there were no other serious voices of concern directing the people of the locality to shift to safe zones. The Meppadi panchayat not only directed people to shift to safe zones but also  directed all resorts to close down operations and evacuate tourists. When we visited the spot on Monday, vehicles of tourists were coming to resorts which led us to issue an emergency order,'' he said, adding that if people had cooperated with equal seriousness, many of the casualties could have been avoided.

An article titled Landslide Warning & Mitigation in Wayanad co-authored by officials with DEOC and district disaster management authority hails the CBRMS system, however when it came to following a crucial warning, the administration has failed, according to residents. ''The community people have been playing a vital role in collecting, systematically, and scientifically the rainfall from the manual rain gauges installed in these 144 locations throughout Wayanad. The local people or the community people's involvement has changed the scenario of monitoring and has stood as a role model for this great initiative,'' the article notes.

Wayanad Additional District Magistrate K Devaki said that she doesn't remember at what time the alert was given to public on Monday and what the content was.

The issue has now ballooned into a point of contention between the centre and the state. Home Minister Amit Shah said in the Parliament on Wednesday that the Kerala government ignored the Centre's multiple warnings issued as early as July 23. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has refuted this stating that no government agency issued a red alert.