Mundakai saw 5 landslides since 1984, says retired GSI director general

BENGALURU: The people of Kerala are still grappling with the shock of the massive landslides in Wayanad, Kozhikode, Mundakai village, Chooralmala and Meppadi which claimed many lives even as several people still remain missing.

The Kerala landslide disaster has shocked everyone. Three villages have been washed away, and over 300 people have died. Landslides are still happening in some parts of Kerala.

The Geological Survey of India’s retired director general, M A Swamy, has warned and expressed concern that there will be another landslide in Mundakai and Chooralmala within a year. There were five major landslides reported in Mundakkai earlier. Significantly, this is not the first landslide occurring here, such massive landslides had happened 20 times earlier in the past. Now all the houses that have been washed away because they were built on fossilized structures with no strong foundation for buildings, Swamy pointed out.

He further said that the fossilized structures have been washed away and now there is no strength in the soil and another landslide will occur.

“When I was the director-general of the Geological Survey of India and in charge of Kerala, I had submitted a list of areas prone to landslides to the government. Chooralmala and Mundakkai were identified as sensitive areas, but the successive governments did not take adequate precautions. The houses that were washed away in Kochi were also built on fossilized structures as the soil lacked strength”, he added.