Nature’s fury or human error: Why is Kerala so prone to calamities?

Gripped by fear of deluge, Kerala is polarised over a very basic question — why does the state fall prey to natural calamities so often, and with such severity?

A section of the population believes the blame lies squarely on the non-implementation of the Madhav Gadgil committee report that recommended steps to preserve the ecologically frail Western Ghats. Others think global warming could be triggering the climate vagaries the state has been facing of late.

The reality is that both the arguments hold water, and are not mutually exclusive. According to a study done in 2017 by TV Sajeev, a scientist with the Kerala Forest Research Institute, the state has 5,924 rock mining quarries, among which only 750 are licensed. The unmindful quarrying causes the rain related calamities, it is suspected.

Also, Kerala has been receiving extremely heavy rain over the past few years, which is seen as a direct impact of rising temperatures in the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea.

Combination of factors

“All these factors contribute (to calamities). It is a fact that Kerala has become highly vulnerable to natural calamities; we have to rearrange our priorities and development plans accordingly,” said Roxi Mathew Koll, a scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune. He told The Federal that though quarrying might not be the only reason, it could be among the triggers,  along with several other factors that contribute to global warming.

Also read: Idukki dam: How Kerala’s prized asset sometimes turns fiend

The recent landslide could be an eye-opener in this context. In the Koottickal panchayat region in Kottayam district, 13 lives were lost in a landslide on October 16, including six members from one family. The region, located at the base of the Western Ghats, has two large rock quarries which were recommended for a mining ban by the Kerala State Biodiversity Board (KSBB) in 2013. The board once again warned the government that Koottickal panchayat is a landslide prone area and quarrying has to be stopped. It submitted a recommendation again in 2015.

However, both the quarries continued to function. One was stopped following the Great Flood that shook Kerala in 2018. T.S. Sajimon, president of the panchayat, told The Federal: “We passed a resolution against the functioning of the quarry last year (since the new administration came into power after the panchayat election). Unfortunately, they got a court order in their favour and we are helpless.”

Legal barriers

Sajimon, who was busy with shifting people to relief camps, told The Federal that the panchayat lost the authority to question quarries after a ‘new law’ introduced in 2018.  The ‘new law’ he was referring to is the Kerala Investment Promotion and Facilitation Act. According to this, the application for licence for an industry shall be deemed to have been granted if the panchayat authorities fail to respond within 30 days of the application.

However, the argument that panchayats have lost all powers is not entirely true. “Many panchayats fail to act in time and thus let the industries gain deemed licence. Everybody loves a good quarry,” said Harish Vasudevan, lawyer and environmentalist.

The tragedy that occurred in Koottickal is a classic example of the multipronged calamities Kerala has been facing over the past few years. Koottickal panchayat and the adjoining areas have experienced intense rain. On that fateful day last week, it caused a mini cloud burst with 5 cm rain each in two consecutive hours.

According to experts, heavy rains can trigger landslides in a place with a slope greater than 30 degrees. “From the pictures, I understand that Koottickal lies on a 40 degree slope. Such places are very much vulnerable to landslides,” said Koll of IITM-Pune.

Mining operations

The 2018 annual report of the KSBB said: “In Koottickal region, strong landslides occurred. The Kerala State Biodiversity Board had earlier conducted a study on the mining operations of the Valyantha, the watershed area of Kootickal village, considering the environmental, geological and biological setting of the area. It stated that the functioning of quarries and crusher units in the ecologically sensitive steep hill slopes needs to be stopped and proper ameliorative measures taken for the eco-restoration.”

The landslide in Kavalappara in Malappuram district in 2019, which claimed 59 lives, has striking similarities with the recent Koottickal disaster. Kavalappara also was home to intense quarrying and had unusually heavy rainfall preceding the landslide.

The study on quarries conducted by Sajeev of the Kerala Research Forest Institute found that there are not less than 20 quarries in the 10 km radius of the Kavalappara hills. “I remember there were at least five within a 12-km radius. None of us argue that quarrying is the sole factor, but it is indeed a triggering factor coupled with heavy rains,” Sajeev told The Federal.

From August 1-7, 2019, about 189.4 mm rain was recorded in the region, which is 66% more than the required normal rain of the season. On August 8, 2019, the day the hill collapsed, burying 59 people, the rain gauge in Nilambur adjacent to Kavalappara recorded the highest rainfall of that day in Kerala.

The Pettimudi disaster

The landslide in Pettimudi in Munnar in 2020 with a death toll of 65 also was caused by unusually heavy rain. Pettimudi, the tea estate that lies on a 40 degree slope on the Western Ghats, received 216.35 cm rain from August 1-7, 2020. However, the village has no quarrying, as it is an enclosed tea estate.

The rising temperature of the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean, strong winds and heavy rains accompanying cyclones, clubbed with human interventions such as rock mining and unmindful construction on slopes, make Kerala extremely vulnerable to natural calamities.

“The surface temperature in the Arabian Sea has rapidly increased over a century and now the temperatures are very often above the warm pool threshold,” said Koll. This causes increased humidity that leads to heavy rain. The Western Ghats keep the clouds within Kerala, so rain often becomes more of a curse than a blessing for the state.

So far, the opening of 12 dams has caused no causality in the state. Water from the 12 dams flows into the rivers across six districts in central Kerala, creating water logging in low lying areas and escalating the fear of flood. Thousands of people living on the river banks have been shifted to relief camps.

Though it was predicted that the skies would clear on Monday and Tuesday, there was a sudden change and a yellow alert declared across eight districts on Tuesday. An orange alert was declared across eleven districts for Wednesday and Thursday, which only adds to the widespread fear across the state.