Kalpetta: The landslide hit Mundakkai region received 114 per cent excess rainfall in June and July this year when compared to corresponding months in 2023. According to the data from rain gauge stations of the Hume Centre for Ecology and Wildlife Biology at Puthumala and Chooralmala, the region received 2981 mm of rainfall in June and July. In two days; on July 28 and 29, the area recorded rainfall of 572 mm. It was on July 30 that the devastating landslide occurred wiping out Mundakkai.
Going by the data in June this year 888 mm of rainfall was received and in July 2093.6 mm of rain was received in the area. In the last four years, the cumulative rainfall crossed the 2000 mm mark in the monsoon season only in 2020 when the region received a cumulative rainfall (June and July) of 2353 mm including 1472 in July.
The data from the Hume Centre has been accessible to all of the top-level administrative officers in the district as all of them are in the WhatsApp group which provides daily weather updates on the rainfall, temperature and wind speed. Collected from more than 200 micro weather gauging units across Wayanad, the Hume Centre has data from all regions of the district.
Apart from the data, the centre also provides timely warning signals with data analysis, marking the disaster-prone zones in red and the semi-disaster-prone zones in orange. It was pointed out that as the IMD provides only rain predictions at the macro level, the spot-specific data can be used to issue warning alerts.
On Monday night when the rainfall data crossed the 400 mm mark, Hume Centre had communicated alerts following which heads of local administrative bodies including the Meppadi Panchayat president K Babu and Wayanad District Panchayat President Shamsad Marakkar made a quick visit to Mundakkai late night. While the media reported about a possible catastrophe, the LSG heads managed to evacuate as many as 15 families from Punchirimattam, the epicentre of the disaster in the hillock near Mundakkai.
The Meppadi panchayat also directed all resorts and homestays to windup operations and arrange for the translocation of tourists to safer spots, even by Monday afternoon.
The warning signals from the district administration asking people living in the disaster zones ‘to be alert’ came only by 10.35 pm. After the disaster struck Mundakkai in the early morning hours of Tuesday, the Hume Centre published an analysis of the huge difference in total rain received at ecologically fragile zones of Thettamala, Lakkidi, Mattilayam, Niravilpuzha, Sugandhagiri, Makkiyad, Kappikkalam, Puthumala, Kurichiarmala and Kurumbalakkotta.
