A recent spurt in construction activities on steep slopes around the Kotagiri town in the Nilgiris has alarmed citizens. They fear that another construction boom could lead to major disasters in the future.
W Francis' Nilgiris Gazeteer, states that three geological faults occur in the Nilgiris. One comprises the “Western Ghats, the escarpments on the north eastern side of the Kundahs facing Ootacamund and that from Catherine Falls to near Kotagiri.”
The Nilgiris' seismic history is also written about in the “Asiatic Journal and monthly register for British and foreign India, China and Australasia” of 1823, in which a Kotagiri resident says that “two distinct shocks of an earthquake were felt in my bungalow yesterday: I had not the means of immediately ascertaining the exact time, but it must have been within a few minutes off one o'clock...The interval between the shocks I judge to have been about two minutes: the last was the most violent... The place where this occurred is on a small hill, near the village of Cotaghiri [sic], rather a high spot on the eastern edge of the table land of the Neilgherry [sic] hills.”
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The region's history of being seismically active, could lead to earthquakes and huge landslips if construction along steep slopes continues, said Venugopal Dharmalingam, honorary director of the Nilgiri Documentation Center, who has been fighting to get the district administration to take action against such construction projects, including corniches, both public and private, cut into steep cliff-faces.
“The geological survey of India has stated that on slopes that have a gradient of more than 33 degrees, only trees should be grown to prevent soil erosion and avert landslips. However, there has been a spurt in dangerous construction activities in and around Kotagiri, using earth diggers to construct roads. This is especially dangerous and could lead to major landslips in the future,” said Mr. Venugopal.
The Nilgiris District Collector, Innocent Divya, said that she had not given any permissions for the earth movers to work at any places in Kotagiri, and said that she would look into the matter.
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