Wayanad Landslides: What Government Responded On Hume Centre's Forewarning About Possible Disaster (image:x.com/porinju)
As of Friday, October 11, two months and 10 days have passed since two devastating landslides accentuated by torrential downpour hit the Kerala’s Wayanad. When the tragic mishap occurred, the Hume Centre for Ecology & Wildlife in Wayanad, an environmental organisation collecting local weather information stated that a day before the incident, it has forewarned about the potential catastrophe to the authorities.
In response to the Right To Information (RTI) request filed by the Timeline, the Wayanad Disaster Management Authority and District Collector’s Office, Wayanad has repudiated the organisation’s claim and in a brief replay it rendered that the Hume Centre have not given any official alerts to the district administration.
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However, in another associated query concerning the Disaster Risk Reduction (DDR) steps adopted by the government after Wayanad disaster, the administration detailed the measures they have undertaken since.
Soon after the disaster, the Hume director C K Vishnudas pointed that they had forewarned the district administration about the impending landslides “a full 16 hours” before the disaster and added that the Centre had issued the said alert at 9 am on July 29.
The RTI Response Received
“We have a comprehensive rainfall monitoring system in Wayanad, with over 200 weather stations that provide daily data. Our data showed that Puthumala, the closest weather station to Mundakkai, received 200 mm of rain on July 28 and another 130 mm overnight. It’s significant to note that 600 mm of rain can cause a landslide. Given this, we promptly alerted that further rainfall could lead to a landslide,” the Hume director said.
He then detailed that the area received 572 mm of rain within 48 hours after the first reading on July 28, which eventually triggered the devastating landslide that lost almost 250 lives.
“We had passed on the information to the district administration. However, we don’t know what the authorities did with it,” Vishnudas said. It was this detailed warning that the Wayanad administration dismissed as it had not received.
The Hume Centre’s alerts are not new and these are not completely unheeded by the administration. For instance, in 2020, the organisation’s forewarning about the possibility of landslide in Mundakkai which led to the successful evacuation of people in the area, and it helped to ward off casualties.
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The Hume Centre is a Kalpetta-based non-governmental organisation (NGO) was established in 20o5. Across Wayanad, the organisation operates over 200 locations observing and gathering daily weather data.
Meanwhile, the rehabilitation efforts are currently progressing in the landslide-hit district at many fronts and the government administration is working on receiving special assistance. The Kerala High Court requested the Union government to speed up relief measures for Wayanad.
