Death Toll From Landslides in India’s Kerala Rises to 167, Many Still Missing

The death toll in India’s Kerala state has risen to 167, with nearly 200 people still missing, after two consecutive landslides swept away hundreds of homes in the Wayanad district.

Hundreds of rescue workers sifted through mud and rocks in search of survivors as hopes began to dwindle, reported Reuters. The rescue effort was impeded by rising water in a local river, and a temporary bridge was built to link Mundakkai — the most affected area — before it could be washed away.

“Kerala is called ‘God’s Own Country,’ but each year the beautiful region in the southernmost part of India experiences tremendous rainfall due to the retreating monsoon. The whole country is surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the sea and its lagoons. The monsoon winds enter through the state of Kerala and go out through Kerala as a ‘retreating monsoon,’ and that is why it causes such heavy rain,” Subhadip Majumdar, an author who lives in Delhi, told EcoWatch.

Wayanad, a region in northeastern Kerala, is a tourist attraction known for its hilly landscape of valleys and fields home to abundant wildlife, The New York Times reported.

The elevation of the picturesque region contains steep slopes with loose soil on top of rock that provide ideal landslide conditions when the monsoon rains come, according to geologist S. Sreekumar. Sreekumar said the novel irrigation and construction practices of farmers in the area have interfered with the natural drainage system.

“There are high slopes and people are settled at the base of the slope,” said Sreekumar, as reported by The New York Times.

Extreme and more frequent rainfall due to human-caused climate change have also been “a big contributor, no doubt about that,” Sreekumar said.

In Kerala, upwards of 14 percent of the land is prone to flooding, while as much as half of some districts are vulnerable to floods.

More heavy rain has been forecast for the next 24 hours, said Pinarayi Vijayan, Kerala’s chief minister, who encouraged people to remain on “high alert,” as Reuters reported.

Vijayan said eight inches of rainfall had been predicted for the region affected by the landslide, but instead 22.5 inches fell in a 48-hour period.

“The Arabian Sea is warming at a higher rate compared to other regions and sending more evaporation into the atmosphere, making the region a hotspot for deep convective clouds,” S. Abhilash, who heads Cochin University of Science and Technology’s Advanced Centre for Atmospheric Radar Research in Kerala, told Reuters. “Deep developed clouds in the southeast Arabian Sea region were carried by winds towards land and produced this havoc.”

Almost 1,600 people were rescued from cardamom and tea estates and hillside villages, authorities said, with more than 8,000 taking shelter in camps across the area.

One local TV news channel said the death toll was 230.

The landslides are Kerala’s biggest disaster since floods killed nearly 500 people in 2018.

“The water clogged age-old drainage system needs more advanced technology to prevent flooding. It’s high time for the Kerala government to find some measures to fight the flooding. For the past two years, the floods have caused thousands to become homeless and left many dead,” Majumdar told EcoWatch.

From heavy rainfall to flooding, cyclones and drought, India has been battered by extreme weather in recent years, which some experts say is due to the climate crisis.

“Climate change has led to significant alterations in our environment. We need to take proactive steps to address and adapt to these changes,” Vijayan said, as reported by Reuters. “Effective measures should be taken to prevent impending disasters.”