Massive landslides struck various hilly areas in Kerala’s Wayanad district early on July 30, 2024, leaving hundreds of people suspected to be trapped. Destroyed houses, swollen water bodies and broken branches of uprooted trees dot the high-range hamlets of Mundakkai, Chooralmala, Attamala, and Noolpuzha.
This is one of the major landslides to occur in the 2024 monsoon season, with states like Karnataka, Mizoram, and Assam, also being affected. Earlier, a landslide occurred on National Highway 66 near Shirur in Ankola taluk of Uttar Kannada on July 16, 2024 following incessant rains.
Landslides are a unique and deadly problem in India. Unlike floods, they’re less widespread and harder to track and study with satellites. These catastrophes of mud, rock, and debris have killed and injured hundreds of people, with many going missing as well.
The last major landslide to occur in Kerala was in 2020 when an avalanche came crashing down on the tea plantation workers of the layams (labour lines) of the Kanan Devan Hills in Pettimudi in the Idukki district. Sixty-five people, most of them estate workers, were killed.
