Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday told the Rajya Sabha that the Centre warned the Kerala Government on July 23 of the possibility of excessive rain and landslides, seven days before landslides in Wayanad district led to at least 144 deaths and the devastation of several villages.
Shah said nine teams of the National Disaster Response Force were despatched to Kerala on July 23 and that subsequent warnings were issued to the state government on July 24, July 25 and July 26.
Clarifying the government’s stance after a calling-attention motion on the Wayanad disaster, Shah said that while Opposition MPs had demanded an early warning system for such situations, warnings were given in this case. In the case of recent cyclone warnings, state governments had worked to limit casualties to one in Odisha and nil in Gujarat, he said.
Shah said the Central Government had spent Rs 2,000 crore on the early warning system since 2014 and that every state was given information seven days in advance. He said he was not blaming anyone and that “this is the time to stand with the Kerala Government and the people of Kerala”.
Earlier, Opposition MPs asked the Government to declare the landslides a national disaster and announce a special financial package for Kerala to deal with the aftermath.
John Brittas, a CPM MP from Kerala, said that 60 per cent of the landslides in the country in the past seven years had been in Kerala alone. “We have been pleading with the Government of India to provide relief to the Kerala Government,” he said.
Another CPM MP from Kerala, A A Rahim added that Kerala did not have adequate advanced weather forecasting radar. “Kerala has been demanding a modern doppler radar since 2013,” he said, adding that he had raised the demand in the House but that the Government ignored it.
Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai, replying to the calling-attention motion, said that 133 bodies had been recovered so far in the Wayanad tragedy.
‘Epicentre of landslide not a human settlement’
A press note issued on Tuesday by the office of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the devastating tragedy that struck Wayanad’s Mundakkai, Attamala and Chooralmala areas was one of the worst natural calamities Kerala has ever witnessed.
The note further said that Mundakkai, known as the epicentre of the landslides, is located in an area highly prone to disasters. The flowing soil, gravel and rocks landed in Chooralmala town, a region not prone to landslides and is 6 km away from the epicentre. This area is a flat riverbank that has been inhabited for years. The epicentre of the landslide, however, is not a human settlement.
People were evacuated due to heavy rain, which reduced the scope of the accident. An orange alert was issued for the area, with a warning that 64 to 204 mm of rain could fall. However, the area received 200 mm of rain in the first 24 hours and 372 mm in the next 24 hours, totalling 572 mm of rain over 48 hours.
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