Nature has wreaked such havoc in Kerala’s hilly district Wayanad that 143 people have died in a landslide here. More than 90 people are reported missing. This disaster has scratched the wounds of Kerala, due to which natural disasters have troubled Kerala many times.
First of all, let us talk about the flood that occurred in Kerala in August 2018. 483 people died in Kerala in this natural disaster, which was called the state’s ‘flood of the century’. This devastating disaster not only claimed lives but also destroyed property and livelihoods.
Its impact was so much that the Central Government had declared the flood of 2018 as a ‘Disaster of Serious Nature’. After this accident, more than 14.50 lakh people from 3.91 lakh families were rehabilitated in relief camps. A total of 57,000 hectares of agricultural crops were destroyed. The images of pregnant women being airlifted by Indian Air Force helicopters in 2018 are still fresh in the minds of Keralites. Questions were also raised on the need for eco-friendly construction during the reconstruction of Kerala devastated by the 2018 floods.
According to the Kerala government, one-sixth of the state’s total population was directly affected by the floods and related incidents. While the state was slowly getting back on its feet after the devastating floods of 2018, another disaster struck in 2019 when a landslide occurred in Puthumala in Wayanad, about 10 km from the currently affected areas, killing 17 people. Went.
According to PTI, incessant rains again triggered landslides in October 2021, killing 35 people in Idukki and Kottayam districts of the state. According to data shared by the Indian Meteorological Department, heavy rains and flood-related incidents in 2021 had claimed the lives of 53 people in Kerala.
According to the state government, exactly one year later in August 2022, heavy rains caused landslides and flash floods in the state, resulting in the death of 18 people, damage to hundreds of properties and thousands of people who were displaced to relief camps.
More than 5,000 people were shifted to 178 relief camps from disaster-affected and disaster-prone areas of the state in rain-related incidents of 2022. According to the Ministry of Earth Sciences, out of 3,782 landslides that occurred in the country between 2015 and 2022, the maximum of 2,239 landslides have been recorded in Kerala.