With its rolling hills covered with the light blue kurinji blooms, Munnar beckons tourists from far and wide these days. The government had planned big for the much-awaited kurinji season, but its plans went awry with the mid-August rains, floods and, specifically, landslips causing extensive damage in the high ranges. What hits the eyes of a traveller to Rajamalai hill, which is covered with the rich tapestry of kurinji flowers now, are the hundreds of big and small landslips en route, like scars left after a violent duel.
The worst affected are the slopes of hills that have been cut into or carved off to build roads. The slopes have been cut vertically at most places. There is no creeper or concrete support for the exposed earth, which almost resembles a raw wound. It is clear that the earth, red in colour but little different from sand in the plains in terms of its gluey properties, has disgorged the huge quantity of water that the rains emptied on to these hills within a short span of time. Even to the untrained eye, this is clearly a case of proper construction norms not having been followed and human intrusion into the terrain’s natural gradients and green cover having had a disastrous consequence.
When the rains persisted and the Periyar waters rose alarmingly, the entire focus was on the casualties, heavy destruction of properties and massive dislocation, the hundreds of small and major landslips not getting attention other than as the cause for disruption of traffic through the winding hill roads.
There is, for instance, a place on the Kochi-Dhanushkodi highway where an entire building still lies under the earth and many places where homes have suffered irreparable damages. Every 100 metres there are the minor landslips that bear intimations about the bigger tragedies that might come if urgent attention is not paid to them and corrective action is not taken.
Landslips
According to the Public Works Department, landslips have occurred at 1,946 spots in the district which has 2,880 km of roads, including 2,065 km under the control of the PWD and the rest under the National Highways Authority. Kerala is linked to Tamil Nadu through the high range corridors of Kochi-Dhanushkodi, Adimali-Kumily, Kottayam-Kumily and Sabarimala-Palani. The Sabarimala-Palani road through Marayoor is under development as a National Highway.
The PWD authorities blame the Forest Department for the sharp cut of the slopes. They have estimated that around ₹2,065 crore would be necessary to repair the roads and bridges in the district.
Recently, the Scotland model for water drainage was adopted for repairing many roads in the high ranges, but the sensitivity of the soil in the district appears to have received little attention. The need to preserve the grass cover on the slopes also has not received much importance.
Constructions
The problem has got accentuated with large quantity of earth being moved from the slopes to construct buildings into huge man-made cavities.
The places where buildings have come under huge amount of debris bear out the disastrous consequences of such building practices. With each attempt at widening roads in the district, the hills get massively attacked, with the Revenue and Mining and Geology Department playing little role in preserving the natural geographical features of the sensitive hill ecosystem.
Visitors to Munnar mostly want wider roads, comfortable short stay spaces and quality holiday experience, little realising that the innards of the hills are being gouged out to make all these available to them. Increasingly, the once sylvan landscape of Munnar and the rest of Idukki are yielding place to high rises that stand tall like warts, signifying a malady that the kurinji blooms can hardly hide beneath their resplendence.
