As Malabar faces deadly landslides, debate shifts to ecologically sensitive areas and human intervention

S. Anandan | The Hindu

Suneesh V., 29, walks gingerly to the tarpaulin-covered front yard of his tiny house as if the earth would give way if he stepped on it a little firmly. He doesn’t seem to trust the soil beneath his feet any longer. He lives on Muthappankunnu hill, covered with young rubber trees, in Kavalappara, which is part of the Bhoodanam colony in Pothukallu panchayat in Kerala’s Malappuram district. This is where landless tribals secured land after the Bhoodan movement more than six decades ago. On the night of August 8, the hill suddenly moved, shaking his faith in it.

The rains had been relentless since August 4, but they turned particularly raucous from August 7, flooding the lowlands of Nilambur taluk in the Chaliyar river basin. Almost all of Pothukallu’s low-lying areas were submerged, forcing people to seek shelter elsewhere.

Water rose at an alarming pace in the thodu (streamlet) at the foot of Muthappankunnu hill as well. Several hill people, including Suneesh, a construction worker, were without work for a few days. On August 8 evening, a clutch of youth in the neighbourhood decided to walk down the road that split the hill in the middle to gauge the situation.

Meteorological data indicate that Malappuram received 512% and 248% excess rainfall on August 7 and 8, respectively. In Wayanad, the rain was beyond normal by 312% and 867%, respectively, on the same days.

“Most regions with a slope of more than 20 degrees are prone to landslides. Eight per cent of Kerala is classified as a critical zone for mass movements. Further, since the 19th century, over 50% of land with tropical forests and grasslands has been converted to monoculture plantations and agricultural fields. This has made the terrain much more vulnerable to landslides,” Roxy says. He calls for an improvement in weather forecast models and early warning systems.

V. Nandakumar, group head, Crustal Processes, at the National Centre for Earth Science Studies and who visited the landslide sites, says clay liquefaction was visible at Kavalappara. Water kept pounding the rain pits dug for the rubber trees and entered the cracks in the ground. This caused lithomargic clay, which acts as an adhesive between the soil, which is just a few metres deep, and the hard rock underneath, to be wrenched out. It came crashing down as the hill is at a 60% incline, he says.

At Puthumala, unscientific constructions that interrupted natural drains played a role in multiplying the magnitude of minor slides that generally occur in forest areas, says Nandakumar. The need of the hour is scientific management of land use in a people-oriented manner, given the demography of the State, he says.

Rajesh Dominic, the aggrieved farmer at Kavalappara, says that this scientific management should also evolve in consultation with the local population.

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