New Delhi:

The deadly landslides in Kerala’s ecologically fragile Wayanad district were triggered by a heavy burst of rainfall, made 10 per cent heavier by climate change, according to a new rapid attribution study by a global team of scientists.

Researchers from India, Sweden, the US and the UK warned that such events will become more common as the climate continues to warm.

To measure the impact of human-caused climate change, the scientists from the World Weather Attribution (WWA) group analysed climate models with high enough resolution to accurately reflect rainfall in the relatively small study area.

The models indicated that the intensity of rainfall has increased by 10 per cent due to climate change, they said.

The models also predict a further four per cent increase in rainfall intensity if the average global temperature rises by two degrees Celsius compared to the 1850-1900 average.

The scientists, however, said there is a “high level of uncertainty” in the model results as the study area is small and mountainous with complex rainfall-climate dynamics.

Having said that, the increase in heavy one-day rainfall events aligns with a growing body of scientific evidence on extreme rainfall in a warming world, including in India, and the understanding that a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, leading to heavier downpours.

According to scientists, the atmosphere’s capacity to hold moisture increases by about 7 per cent for every one-degree Celsius rise in global temperature.

The Earth’s global surface temperature has already increased by around 1.3 degrees Celsius due to the rapidly rising concentration of greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide and methane. Scientists say this is the reason behind worsening extreme weather events, such as droughts, heat waves and floods worldwide.

The WWA scientists said that while the relationship between land cover, land use changes and landslide risk in Wayanad is not fully clear from existing studies, factors, such as quarrying for building materials and a 62 per cent reduction in forest cover may have increased the slopes’ susceptibility to landslides during heavy rainfall.

Other researchers have also linked the Wayanad landslides to a combination of forest cover loss, mining in fragile terrain and prolonged rain followed by heavy precipitation.

S Abhilash, the director of the Advanced Centre for Atmospheric Radar Research at Cochin University of Science and Technology (CUSAT), had earlier told PTI that the warming of the Arabian Sea is leading to the formation of deep cloud systems, resulting in extremely heavy rainfall in Kerala in a short period and increasing the risk of landslides.

“Our research found that the southeast Arabian Sea is becoming warmer, causing the atmosphere above Kerala to become thermodynamically unstable. This instability is allowing the formation of deep clouds,” he had said.

According to the landslide atlas released by ISRO’s National Remote Sensing Centre last year, 10 out of the top 30 landslide-prone districts in India are in Kerala, with Wayanad ranked at the 13th spot.

A study published by Springer in 2021 said all landslide hotspots in Kerala are in the Western Ghats region and are concentrated in Idukki, Ernakulam, Kottayam, Wayanad, Kozhikode and Malappuram districts.

It said about 59 per cent of total landslides in Kerala have occurred in plantation areas.

A 2022 study on depleting forest cover in Wayanad showed that 62 per cent of forests in the district disappeared between 1950 and 2018, while plantation cover rose by around 1,800 per cent. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Wayanad (Kerala):

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday carried out an aerial survey of disaster-hit areas of this north Kerala district where landslides claimed hundreds of lives.

PM Modi conducted aerial survey of the landslide-ravaged Chooralmala, Mundakkai, and Punchirimattom hamlets aboard an Indian Air Force helicopter, on which he departed to Wayanad from Kannur Airport around 11.15 am.

He was accompanied by Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Union Minister of State for Tourism and Petroleum and Natural Gas Suresh Gopi.

After the aerial survey, he will land at the SKMJ Higher Secondary School in Kalpetta here from where PM Modi will proceed to certain landslides-hit areas by road.

His visit comes at a time when the Kerala government has sought Rs 2,000 crore in assistance for rehabilitation and relief work in the disaster-stricken region.

At least 226 people died and many remain unaccounted for after landslides hit the region on July 30 in what is seen as one of the biggest natural disasters to have impacted the southern state. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

The Adani group has fulfiled its promise of Rs 5 crore donation to support the rehabilitation of Wayanad landslide victims. 

On July 31, Gautam Adani, Chairman and founder of the Adani group of companies expressed his condolences for the lives lost in the Wayanad landslide and said that he will provide financial assistance of Rs 5 crore to support relief efforts in Kerala.

We #StandWithWayanadSupporting Those in Need!

Adani Group fulfills its promise to support the rehabilitation of Wayanad landslide victims. Our Chairman, Shri @gautam_adani, announced that a Rs 5 crore donation was handed over to Hon. Chief Minister of Kerala, Shri… pic.twitter.com/hDN2XOX2Xi

— Adani Ports and SEZ Ltd (@Adaniports) August 9, 2024

 Mr Adani had said he was “deeply saddened by the tragic loss of life in Wayanad”. “My heart goes out to the affected families,” he added.

Deeply saddened by the tragic loss of life in Wayanad. My heart goes out to the affected families. The Adani Group stands in solidarity with Kerala during this difficult time. We humbly extend our support with a contribution of Rs 5 Cr to the Kerala Chief Minister’s Distress…

— Gautam Adani (@gautam_adani) July 31, 2024

Several people died and many remain unaccounted for after landslides hit the region on July 30, in what was likely one of the biggest natural disasters to have hit Kerala.

(Disclaimer: New Delhi Television is a subsidiary of AMG Media Networks Limited, an Adani Group Company.)

Kochi:

The Kerala High Court, hearing a suo-moto case on the Wayanad landslide disaster, on Friday stressed the need for a holistic approach in pursuing developmental activities, so tragedies like that which took place in the hill district could be averted.

It then appointed senior advocate Ranjith Thampan as amicus curiae and asked him to look into present policies and to suggest fresh ones on environmental issues.

The court pointed out that a landslide is a classic example of what happens when the natural environment’s balance is disrupted.

“When you are talking about the availability of a resource and you remove such things from nature, the ecological balance is disturbed. Landslide is a classic example. You create pockets of holes which then lead to such incidents. A holistic approach is very much needed to check the social, economic, and ecological impact of such activities,” it said.

The court asked the amicus curiae to do an in-depth analysis on how the environment can be protected and asked the state government to develop a comprehensive policy on developmental activities.

It also impleaded agencies including the National Centre for Earth Science Studies, the Geological Survey of India, the Union of India, the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Kerala State Disaster Management, the State Environmental Impact Assessment, and the Coastal Zone Management Authority, and posted the next hearing for August 16.

Meanwhile, the over 1,000-strong rescue team comprising personnel from all the defence forces, the NDRF, the SDRF, police, fire service and volunteers began searches early on Friday morning in the four worst-affected areas of Churalmala, Velarimala, Mundakayil, and Punchirimadom. The death toll has touched 413 while 152 people are still missing.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is arriving on Saturday to visit the affected areas and will also interact with the victims presently housed in relief camps.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

In a thoughtful move, a 13-year-old girl child from Tamil Nadu, Harini Sri, performed Bharatanatyam for three straight hours to raise funds for the people affected by the Wayanad landslides in Kerala.

The young girl donated Rs 15,000, including her savings, to the Chief Minister’s Distress Relief Fund (CMDRF) on Thursday.

Taking to its official handle on X, the Information Public Relations (IPRD), Kerala government posted, “A 13-year-old girl child from Tamil Nadu, Harini Sri, performed Bharatanatyam for 3 hours straight to raise funds for the Wayanad landslide to #standwithwayanad. She donated Rs15,000, including her savings, to CMDRF.”

A 13-year-old girl child from Tamil Nadu, Harini Sri, performed #Bharatanatyam for 3 hrs straight to raise funds for #Wayanadlandslide to #standwithwayanad. She donated ₹15,000, including her savings, to #CMDRF. pic.twitter.com/v8FmbkZ1ie

— Kerala Government | കേരള സർക്കാർ (@iprdkerala) August 8, 2024

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan met the girl and gave her blessings.

The Chooralmala and Mundakkai in Kerala’s Wayanad were hit by massive landslides on July 30, claiming over 300 lives and creating widespread property damage.

Meanwhile, a special team consisting of army personnel, SOG officials, and forest officials has been conducting a search operation at Sunrise Valley in Soojippara, inside the forest, since Thursday.

The Wayanad district administration organized a farewell for the Indian Army personnel who were a part of the rescue and search operation in landslide-hit areas of Kerala’s Wayanad.

As the Indian Army, after completing a ten-day-long rescue operation, is set to leave, the rescue operation will be handed over to the forces of the NDRF, SDRF, Fire Force, and Kerala police.

An Indian Army battalion comprising around 500 members from Thiruvananthapuram, Kozhikode, Kannur, and Bengaluru is set to return.

The maintenance team of Bailey Bridge, temporarily constructed by the Indian Army, will remain in the area.

IAF helicopters are now aiding the search operations. Till now, more than 700 kg of relief material, 8 civilians, and teams of the Special Operations Group have been airlifted by helicopters since Wayanad was hit by disaster on July 30.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Wayanad:

The Kerala government on Wednesday said it was taking immediate steps to rehabilitate all the families affected by the massive landslides in this north Kerala district more than a week ago.

The announcement was made by state Revenue Minister K Rajan who is part of a Cabinet sub-committee currently camped out close to the disaster areas to assess the situation there.

K Rajan, after an emergency meeting of the committee with the panchayat presidents and secretaries at the Collectorate on the issue of temporary rehabilitation of people in the relief camps, said that assistance will be provided to all eligible persons including those in camps, homes of relatives and hospitals.

There is no truth in the campaigns which claim that people have to register themselves at the camps to be included in the rehabilitation plan, he said.

“The rehabilitation package will be prepared on the basis of accurate data from the landslide affected areas and not on the basis of who is living in the camps,” the minister said.

He said that the propaganda that only those in the camps will get help was not true.

Giving details of the steps taken, K Rajan said that the committee has directed the local bodies to identify vacant houses, quarters, flats and hostels within the panchayat limits for temporary resettlement of the people living in camps operating in various schools.

It will also help to resume classes in the schools where the camps are running, he said.

The minister also said that government quarters and hotels will also be used for temporary resettlement of the landslide survivors.

He also said that where private accomodations, including flat complexes, are concerned, the government will fix the rent and pay the same and none of the survivors would be burdened with the payments.

K Rajan said the plan for temporary resettlement of people is being implemented to provide more comfortable accommodation for the affected people and to resume studies in the schools which are functioning as camps.

The first consideration for rehabilitation of the victims would be the vacant houses, government quarters, hotels, home stays and hostels in panchayats close to the disaster-hit areas, he said.

The minister said that the government’s plan is to safely relocate the people living in the camps in a phased manner.

The number of deaths resulting from the devastating landslides in the Mundakkai and Chooralmala areas of Wayanad on July 30 has increased to 226 with around 138 people missing.

The search operations for those missing from the landslides-hit Chooralmala and Mundakkai areas continued for the ninth day with 1,026 personnel from various forces, including the army and navy, over 500 volunteers and heavy machinery being deployed there.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Tragedies like the Wayanad landslides repeat themselves partly because their lessons are not brought to bear on our understanding of the local amplifiers of extreme events. A view of a mountain of the Western Ghats in Wayanad, Kerala, November 15, 2022.
| Photo Credit: Nakkeeran Raveendran/Unsplash

At no place on the earth is the climate risk zero — yet when natural hazards strike, the resulting loss of lives, livelihoods, and assets sting. Disaster management and recovery play a crucial role in alleviating the pain. Unfortunately, however, a blame game may follow asking whether early warnings could have averted the tragedy.

Any early warning that may have been issued will always start with the weather forecast for the area where the hazard manifested. Proactively mitigating disasters instead of always managing them after they happen requires climate risk outlooks that go out to a decade or longer.

Further, post-facto analyses of deadly disasters — like the landslides in Wayanad, Kerala, on July 30 — often do not appreciate the fact that broad warnings of risks can hardly be translated to specific actions. For example, if we declare the entire Western Ghats to be vulnerable to landslides, governments can develop and enforce regulations to protect the whole range from deforestation, development, monoculture plantations, etc.

However, doing so will mitigate some landslides; it won’t get rid of extreme events induced by climate change anytime soon. Some landslides will occur anyway even if the Ghats enjoy the fullest protections from human perturbations because the risk is never zero.

Predictions for disaster management, mitigation

Similarly, the predictions of models will also always be imperfect. If we are to improve their ability to predict extreme events more accurately (in terms of their location and amplitude), we need to fully understand the effects of local drivers that could exacerbate the climate’s effects. After every extreme event, someone claims global warming is a contributor — yet the relationship between local events and global warming complicates the truth of such claims.

The drivers of climate extremes originate from a far-away place but are usually exacerbated by some regional, location-specific factors.

For instance, a 2015 study (which included this author) indicated that coastal sea surface temperatures have a strong influence on heavy rain along India’s west coast. Wayanad district lies about 80 km from this coast. Monsoon winds stream across the equator and continue to load up on moisture as they turn southwesterly and head towards the Western Ghats. As they approach the coast, the winds sense they will have to climb the Western Ghats and slow down. Slower winds reduce the evaporation over the coastal ocean and the coastal waters tend to warm up — and warm waters exert a strong control on the atmosphere and rainfall.

Such a warming is typically seen up to 10 days ahead of a heavy rain event over the coastal ocean. Global models typically miss such local, small-scale warming or cooling processes and tend to underestimate the amount of rain in an extreme event. Enhancing the coastal observations and assimilating them into forecast models is expected to improve predictions.

This is also why adopting location-specific measures like legal protections for biodiversity can help mitigate disasters. Governments can also bolster their regulatory strategies using predictions of the climate up to a decade in the future and combining each prediction with hyperlocal risks.

Similarly, national and local governments will have to work together and share monitoring, reporting, and verification responsibilities to mitigate risk. Finally, all these consequences of the relationship between global warming and local events will have to be accounted for in budgetary provisions. Otherwise, mitigating disasters may not be sustainable.

Further, predictions with a lead time of a few weeks could help disaster management personnel mobilise towards locales with the highest imminent risk and avoid surprises. This is where the location-specific drivers can help ensure the hyperlocal risk information is reliable in crisis times.

Coarse global to fine hyperlocal

Global models provide seasonal outlooks and predictions at the short (1-3 days), medium (3-10 days), and extended (2-4 weeks) ranges. They have been getting better at offering outlooks of the monsoon, the El Niño and La Niña events, and early extreme-event warnings. Researchers around the world — in academia and national laboratories — constantly diagnose imperfections in these models and remove them.

One particular approach to improving the models is called downscaling, especially to enhance predictions of extreme events like small-scale heavy rain. In downscaling, researchers use a global model to drive local predictions in a higher resolution regional model to capture the weather at scales that the global model will miss.

Of late, they have been executing such two-tier strategies using techniques in artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML). Their costs are lower than those incurred by running a high-resolution regional model. Such AI/ML approaches are also many times faster than regional models, further lending themselves to more effective disaster management.

Spotting location-specific amplifiers

Tragedies like that in Wayanad on July 30 tend to repeat themselves partly because their lessons are not always brought to bear on our understanding of the local amplifiers of extreme events. Simple changes in land use patterns — associated with urbanisation, say, or the deforestation of mountain slopes — could lead to a crushing cloudburst and or a punishing hailstorm.

The relatively more coarse resolutions of global models — which deal with changes in the tens of kilometres — tend to miss such local features and add to their imperfections. To acquire a better sense of the effects of these features and thus enable regional dynamic or AI/ML downscaling for hyperlocal predictions, we need more local data of weather and climate variables.

Disaster mitigation efforts are crucial to weather-proof the country and make it more climate-resilient at longer timescales. To this end we urgently need a data network that supports the mapping of local extreme event amplifiers.

Raghu Murtugudde is a professor, IIT Bombay, and emeritus professor, University of Maryland.

With a steeply pitched tiled roof piercing misty green hills in southern India and a stream gushing through rocks nearby, the Stone House Bungalow was one of the most popular resorts in the Wayanad area of Kerala state.

It was empty when two landslides early on Tuesday washed away the 30-year-old stone building: staff and tourists had left after rain flooded its kitchen a few days earlier.

But neighbouring dwellings in Mundakkai village were occupied and 205 people, almost all locals, were killed and scores are missing. Tourists had been warned to leave the day earlier because of the rain.

Local authorities are now counting the cost of the disaster and questioning whether the rapid development of a tourism industry was to blame for the tragedy. Weather-related disasters are not unusual in India, but the landslides in Kerala state this week were the worst since about 400 people were killed in floods there in 2018.

Mundakkai, the area worst affected by the landslides, was home to some 500 local families. It and neighbouring villages housed nearly 700 resorts, homestays and zip-lining stations attracting trekkers, honeymooners and tourists looking to be close to nature, a local official said. Cardamom and tea estates dotted the hills.

Experts said they had seen Tuesday’s disaster coming for years and several government reports in the past 13 years had warned that over-development in the ecologically sensitive areas would increase the risk of landslides and other environmental disasters such as floods by blocking natural water flows. The warnings were largely ignored or lost in bureaucratic wrangling.

A fast-growing India is rapidly building infrastructure across the country, especially in its tourist destinations, including the ecologically fragile Himalayan foothills in the north where there has been a rise in cave-ins and landslides.

Just three weeks before the latest disaster, Kerala Tourism Minister PA Mohammed Riyas said in the state assembly in answer to a question that Wayanad was “dealing with an influx of more people than it can handle, a classic example of a place facing the problem of over-tourism”.

The area is just six hours by road from Bengaluru, India’s tech hub, and is a favoured weekend destination for the city’s wealthy IT professionals.

However, officials were unable to share any documentary evidence with Reuters of resorts and tourist facilities flouting building regulations, although they said some had done so.

Noorudheen, part of Stone House’s managing staff who goes by one name, said no government or village authority had warned the management against building or operating a resort there.

There was no sign that the landslides were directly caused by over-development. Residents said regions higher up in the hills were loosened by weeks of heavy rain and an unusually heavy downpour on Monday night led to rivers of mud, water and boulders crashing downhill, sweeping away settlements and people.

But experts said the unbridled development had worsened the situation by removing forest cover that absorbs rain and blocking natural runoffs.

“Wayanad is no stranger to such downpours,” said N Badusha, head of Wayanad Prakruthi Samrakshana Samiti, a local environment protection NGO.

“Unchecked tourism activity in Wayanad is the biggest factor behind worsening such calamities. Tourism has entered ecologically sensitive fragile areas where it was not supposed to be.”

SURGE IN TOURISM

Wayanad received more than 1 million domestic and foreign tourists last year, nearly triple the number in 2011 when a federal government report warned against over-development in the broader mountain range the district lies in, without clearly spelling out the consequences.

“The geography is really too fragile to accommodate all that,” K. Babu, a senior village council official in Mundakkai, said in his office this week as he coordinated rescue efforts. “Tourism is doing no good to the area…the tourism sector was never this active.”

A Wayanad district disaster management report in 2019 warned against “mindless development carried out in recent decades by destroying hills, forests, water bodies and wetlands”.

“Deforestation and reckless commercial interventions on land have destabilised the environment,” Wayanad’s then top official, Ajay Kumar, wrote after landslides in the district that year killed at least 14 people.

Reuters reached out to the Wayanad district head, its disaster management authority, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s office and the Union environment ministry seeking comment but there were no responses.

Mundakkai used to be a small village sitting on the eastern slope of one of the forested green hills of the Western Ghats mountain range that runs parallel to nearly the entire length of India’s western coast for 1,600 km (1,000 miles).

Rashid Padikkalparamban, a 30-year-old Mundakkai native who lost six family members including his father to the landslides, said that the place came to the attention of outsiders mainly after 2019 and turned it into a major tourist attraction.

“They discovered a beautiful region full of tea and cardamom plantations, and a river that swept through it,” he said at a school-turned-relief camp.

Many locals sold their lands to outsiders, who then built tourist retreats in the area, he said.

‘GOD’S OWN COUNTRY’

Kerala, a sliver of land between the Western Ghat mountains to the east and the Arabian Sea to the west, is one of the most scenic states in India, and is advertised as “God’s Own Country”.

But it has witnessed nearly 60% of the 3,782 landslides in India between 2015 and 2022, the Central government told parliament in July 2022.

Studying the ecological sensitivity of the Western Ghats, a central government-appointed committee said in 2011: “It has been torn asunder by the greed of the elite and gnawed at by the poor, striving to eke out a subsistence. This is a great tragedy, for this hill range is the backbone of the ecology and economy of south India.”

The committee, headed by ecologist Madhav Gadgil, recommended barring mining, no new rail lines or major roads or highways in such areas, and restrictions on development in protected areas that it mapped out. For tourism, it said only minimal impact tourism should be promoted with strict waste management, traffic and water use regulations.

State governments, including Kerala, did not accept the report, and a new committee was set up, which in 2013 reduced the overall protected area from 60% of the mountain range to 37%.

But all the states along the mountain range wanted to reduce the protected area even further, minutes of successive meetings until 2019 show. The central government issued drafts to implement the recommendations for all stakeholders, but is yet to issue a final order.

Gadgil told Reuters his committee had “specifically recommended that in ecologically highly sensitive areas there should be no further human interventions, such as reconstruction”.

“The government, of course, decided to ignore our report,” he said, because tourism is a cash cow.

Kerala Chief Minister Vijayan dismissed questions about the Gadgil recommendations, telling reporters his focus was on relief and rehabilitation and asking people to not “raise inappropriate propaganda in the face of this tragedy”.

While experts bemoan tourism-led development, locals like Mundakkai’s Padikkalparamban said it brought jobs to an area that did not have many options earlier.

“After the plantation estates, resorts are the second biggest job-generating sector in the area now,” he said.

But KR Vancheeswaran, president of the Wayanad Tourism Organisation that has some 60 resorts and homestays as members but none in the vicinity of the landslides, said the industry needed to take some of the blame.

“If human activities are going to be unbearable to nature, nature will unleash its power and we will not be able to withstand it,” Vancheeswaran said. “We have had to pay a very, very high price, so let us try to learn from it.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Drone image of Chooralmala in Wayanad district of Kerala, on August 1, 2024.
| Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

ISRO’s National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) has released high-resolution images taken by the space agency’s satellites which reveal the extensive damage caused by the landslip in Wayanad district in Kerala.

NRSC has released before and after images of Chooralmala in Wayanad district, which has been devastated by the July 30 landslide. The images show that about 86,000 square metres of land had slipped out of place.

While the pre-event images were captured by the Cartosat 3 satellite on May 22, 2023, the post event images were captured by the RISAT satellite a day after the landslip on July 31.

According to the images released by NRSC, there is evidence of an earlier landslip in the same location.

Interpreting the details of the image, NSRC states that a major flow of debris was triggered by heavy rainfall in and around Chooralmala.

Very high resolution RISAT SAR images of July 31 show the entire extent of the debris flow from crown to end of the run-out zone. The approximate length of the flow is 8 km. The crown zone is a reactivation of an older landslide. The size of the main scrap of the landslide is 86,000 sq.m. The debris flow has widened the course of the Iruvaniphuza river, causing breach of its banks. Houses and other infrastructure located along the banks have been damaged by the debris flow, according to NRSC.

NRSC has the mandate for establishment of ground stations to receive satellite data, generate data products, disseminate to users, development of techniques for remote sensing applications, including disaster management support, geospatial services for good governance, and capacity building for professionals, faculty and students. 

Drone image of Chooralmala in Wayanad district of Kerala, on August 1, 2024.
| Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

ISRO’s National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) has released high-resolution images taken by the space agency’s satellites which reveal the extensive damage caused by the landslip in Wayanad district in Kerala.

NRSC has released before and after images of Chooralmala in Wayanad district, which has been devastated by the July 30 landslide. The images show that about 86,000 square metres of land had slipped out of place.

While the pre-event images were captured by the Cartosat 3 satellite on May 22, 2023, the post event images were captured by the RISAT satellite a day after the landslip on July 31.

According to the images released by NRSC, there is evidence of an earlier landslip in the same location.

Interpreting the details of the image, NSRC states that a major flow of debris was triggered by heavy rainfall in and around Chooralmala.

Very high resolution RISAT SAR images of July 31 show the entire extent of the debris flow from crown to end of the run-out zone. The approximate length of the flow is 8 km. The crown zone is a reactivation of an older landslide. The size of the main scrap of the landslide is 86,000 sq.m. The debris flow has widened the course of the Iruvaniphuza river, causing breach of its banks. Houses and other infrastructure located along the banks have been damaged by the debris flow, according to NRSC.

NRSC has the mandate for establishment of ground stations to receive satellite data, generate data products, disseminate to users, development of techniques for remote sensing applications, including disaster management support, geospatial services for good governance, and capacity building for professionals, faculty and students.