The Wayanad Blunders

Despite Several Warnings By Environment Committees, Indiscriminate Quarrying And Deforestation Have Continued Apace, Forcing Kerala To Pay This Heavy Price

- Jeemon Jacob

Imagine all the rain Delhi gets in a year, packed into just 48 hours, and bucketed down over a small stretch of sloping mountain soil that’s already soaked to the brim by torrential Kerala monsoons. When the earth under their feet finally gave way, in the dead of night, two Wayanad villages slipped into oblivion. Mundakkai, and two miles downriver, Chooralmala met this last nightmare of their lives—a horrific cascade of mud, water and death—on July 30. At least 230 people were confirmed dead by July 31 night, but with nearly 200 still missing, that body count looked likely to swell. The worst part is, it was a tragedy foretold. Landslides are a near-endemic phenomenon on the eastern flank of Kerala, where it rises up to the mighty Western Ghats: the state records the highest number in the country, and accounted for 2,239 of the 3,782 landslides between 2015 and 2022, according to the ministry of earth sciences. You can blame it all on nature—if you include human nature, that is.