Sane Suggestions Buried In Road To Dusty Death

Death swept through villages in Kerala’s northern Wayanad district in inky darkness past 2 a.m. on Tuesday, as heavy monsoon rains triggered massive landslides, killing at least 120 people. Scores were missing or injured. Residents living in mountainous terrain in the normally picturesque nature resort were buried in the flowing mud, in a macabre recreation of the landslides that hit the same region at night in 2019. The worst hit villages this time were Mundakkai, Chooralmala, Attamala, and Noolpuzha, and survivors recounted the horror of escaping giant boulders that smashed into their dwellings, buoyed by mud streams.

Wayanad normally gets 635 mm of rain between July 1 and 30, but this year has been catastrophic as 1,272 mm beat down on the district, much of it in intense short-duration spells, dislodging mud and boulders along the upper reaches of denuded forest slopes. Survivors were shocked and distraught, as they found their loved ones either drowned or missing, feared buried under the layers of mud and rock that had descended on their villages; their material lives were upended overnight. The scenes echoed the devastation witnessed five years ago in places like Kavalapara in Malappuram and Puthumala in Wayanad, killing 59 in the former location alone. That carnage, however, did not bring about any change of heart among special interests about putting the fragile Western Ghats landscapes to enhanced commercial use, ignoring the warnings of scientists.

There were lethal landslides in 2020 too at Pettimudi in Idukki district killing 66 people. To scientists, climate change was asserting itself, in the form of intense rainfall falling in a short window, dissolving the beautiful mountainside sought by miners, resort promoters and farmers, among others.

Tuesday’s ecological disaster apparently caught the Kerala government, which was earlier experiencing a lull in the monsoon, somewhat flat-footed. Although the Indian Army and the National Disaster Response Force, the latter with State counterparts located in Kannur, were deployed, only one NDRF team had reached the affected area by mid-morning. Given the scale and nature of the catastrophe, this was a small group, while continued rain and a forecast for more intense downpours hobbled the rescue as more personnel joined in. Many of the affected areas in the latest landslide come within the core areas identified by ecologist Madhav Gadgil - who led the official 2011 Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) - as highly sensitive, and therefore deserving the highest levels of protection in the form of “no go” zones for human extractive activity.

On Tuesday, Prof. Gadgil called the latest deadly landslide a “man-made disaster.” In his WGEEP report calling for the declaration of 60% of the Ghats to be given the highest level of protection (ecologically sensitive zone 1), the scientists suggested the demarcation of the sensitive zones with the help of local communities and experts, and not just the government departments. Prof. Gadgil had classified the entire Western Ghats as ecologically sensitive and recommended that they mostly be spared extractive, commercial pressure.

As political parties rejected the report, it was toned down through the Kasturi Rangan high-level working group, which nevertheless wanted 37% of the Ghats to be left alone, provoking protests.

As the MP for Wayanad, Rahul Gandhi said in Parliament on Tuesday that the Union government should provide enhanced compensation for those who had suffered in the landslides. He called for comprehensive programmes to address the growing frequency of natural calamities in ecologically fragile regions. Gandhi has had to walk a tightrope ever since he chose to contest from Wayanad, trying to balance ecological concerns with relentless pressure from farmers and commercial lobbies to relax the restrictions placed on the district.

Last year, Gandhi appealed to the Centre to take steps to reduce man-animal conflict in the Western Ghats, “one of the most densely populated biodiversity hotspots in the world.” He said the eco-sensitive areas in Wayanad had the largest number of structures which led to heightened fatal conflicts involving wildlife.

The author is a senior journalist.

Published on: Wednesday, July 31, 2024, 09:55 AM IST