The Nilgiri Documentation Center (NDC) has urged the State government to increase monitoring along major roads and vulnerable areas during the monsoons to prevent loss of life from landslips.
In a press release, Venugopal Dharmalingam, honorary director of the NDC, said that “after 1978, the Nilgiris entered ‘an anxious era of landslides.’ Unprecedented rain triggered about a hundred landslides within an area of 250 sq km during 1978. Nearly 200 landslides were recorded in 1979.”
Mr. Dharmalingam said that the Geological Survey of India (GSI) which studied the two landslips declared that the stage of preventing environmental degradation in Nilgiris district has been crossed over and that the harm has been done.
“Subsequently, major landslips occurred with alarming frequency in 1990, 1993, 1998, 2001, 2006, 2009 and 2012. The largest recorded was in 1993 at Marapallam with a scar of two km in width and 7 km in length,” he added.
The NDC said that all major landslips since 1978 have occurred in November. “Between 1987 and 2007, a total of 932 landslides occurred along the transportation corridor (highways) with an average of 44 landslides per year and November alone accounting for 54% of the landslides.”
Mr. Dharmalingam said that the GSI team which inspected the landslip sites identified four human causative factors for the landslips – vertical cutting of the slopes for road formation, loading the slopes with heavy construction activities, terracing for construction and agriculture and encroachment on stream banks.
“Therefore, we appeal to the government to direct the officials to take all preventive steps including 24-hour monitoring of the roads and other vulnerable areas, regulation of traffic during rain and night time, alerting the tourists and public on the vulnerable roads and spots,” said Mr. Dharmalingam.
