It had rained heavily in latter half of July 2024 in Kerala’s Wayanad district cradled within the Western Ghats. The region recorded an estimated 370 mm (22.5 in) of rain between July 28 and 29. This was in keeping with the vagarious pattern of Southwest monsoon, Kerala’s major source of water. The once gentle and continuous rain that stretched between June and August annually has, of late turned South India’s villain in terms of large volume of rain in short bursts(termed ‘cloud bursts’ by the weatherman), accompanied by strong gales. The change in the monsoon pattern has been attributed to warming of the Arabian Sea, caused by El Nino Phenomenon due to global warming.

The destructive pattern of the monsoon has emerged as a bane than boon for South India in recent times. This has been exemplified by Kerala’s back-to-back floods of 2018 and 2019.

At Around 1.00 IST on July 30 2024, a landslide struck the Mundakkai village in Meppadi Gram Panchayat in Kerala’s Wayanad District. The entire village, home to numerous laborers of tea and cardamom estates dotting the region was swept away. At 4.10 IST a second landslide hit Chooralmala North of Mundakkai. This landslide diverted the Iruvazhinji River resulting in flash floods that washed away the Chooralmala village. The only bridge that connected Mundakkai and Attamala villages with Chooralmala collapsed trapping about 400 families in the two villages.

The day following the landslides shed light on the gravity of the calamity. Muddy water and debris brought by the landslides that originated atop surrounding hills merged with the Cheliyar River, from which at least 177 dead bodies were fished out. The victims sleeping in their makeshift tents when the landslides struck seem to have been caught unawares.

The Kerala State and National Disaster Relief teams were dispatched immediately for rescue operations rendered onerous by strong river currents and heavy rain. The Indian Army dispatched their men to rescue survivors. Dead bodies too had to be dug out from the debris and fished out of swollen rivers for later identification. Local hospitals treated the injured. Places of worship and educational institutions in the locality functioned as makeshift hospitals and first-aid posts. More than 4,000 were rescued and over 9000 sent to 91 disaster relief camps in Wayanad.

Kerala’s State Disaster Management Authority, Kerala Fire and Rescue Services, Kerala Police, along with Indian Air Force, Indian Navy, Defense Security Corps, National Disaster Response Force and volunteers from NGOs participated in search and rescue operations in dire circumstances.

On August 1, a 190-foot-long Bailey bridge was constructed by 144 Army men from the Army’s Engineering Task Force of the Madras Engineer Group to connect Chooralmala village with Mundakkai over the Iruvanipuzha River within 31 hours. This helped in evacuation and movement of aid.

On August 2, the Indian Air Force deployed C-130 and drone aircraft from Hindon Airbase in Ghaziabad, as well as a specialized team of experts for sub-soil evacuation and rescue monitoring.

As these operations proceeded, the media reveled in what they are best at- flashing gory images and reporting heartrending ‘news’ spreading panic and despair across the nation. Images and videos of Corpses and severed body parts being retrieved from slushy debris emerged from ground zero.

Distraught and wailing survivors attempted to identify their dear and near whom they presumed dead. Rescuing them seemed a futile exercise. Hope for survivors waned as hours turned to days. Tales of humaneness were also heard from the terrain that resembled a mass graveyard. People buried and cremated the dead as per all-religion practices, as faith of the dead remained obscure as their identity. Faith of the departed didn’t matter. Nor was it of consequence in the face of death and destruction of the magnitude witnessed in the region plundered by the environment.

 The Bereaving who lost their dear and near assisted families and friends who had come from distant states searching for estate laborers who formed the chunk of the region’s population.

The Prime Minister announced Rs. 2 lakh to the next of kin of the dead, and Rs. 50,000 for the injured. The government of Tamil Nadu offered Rs. 5 crore for relief operations and sent medical and rescue teams. The Karnataka Chief Minister promised 100 houses for the affected. Money poured into the Kerala Chief Minister’s Relief Fund from within the country and abroad.

Condolences poured in from the US and Russian Presidents, Chinese and Turkish Foreign Ministries, the Australian High Commissioner to India, the Maldivian President, the French envoy to India, Armenian Foreign Minister, President of UAE and the Saudi Embassy in India.

Corporate and business houses and movie stars contributed liberally to the Disaster Relief Fund. Some of them joined the operations in ground-zero physically.

As search and rescue operations progressed in the ransacked region of Kerala, politicians made their ‘contributions’ their style.

The Union Home Minister did a ‘vulture among the corpses’ act in right earnest. Without losing much time. As one of the states of the Indian Union counted the dead on its hills slopes ransacked by nature’s fury. He told the Upper House in Parliament that the centre had warned the Kerala government on July 23 of possibility of excess rainfall and resultant landslides, and that the state did not heed the warning. After all, Kerala governed by the opposition Reds happens to be the Center’s darling among Indian states. How could the Centre indeed not warn of a calamity about to befall its favorite ‘God’s own country’? Kerala’s Chief Minister joined the distasteful volley by denying any such warning from the centre, and failure to pay heed, instead of ignoring New Delhi fishing in Wayanad’s muddy waters. The Home Minister’s indulgence in opportunism and petty politics drew flak from other political parties. It also resulted in Parliamentary debate- a rarity in today’s Indian democracy.

The Monsoon had not spared the Home Minister’s own state. Normal lives were derailed in Gujarat’s Vapi and Valsad regions. Navsari had people stranded. Strangely, the Home Minister’s early warning system failed to save Gujarat from Monsoon calamity! It did not make a whimper when wall collapses in schools in rain-affected Madhya Pradesh crushed to death tiny tots. Probably his early warning system works best when opposition-ruled states are battered by natural calamity.

The harassed Kerala Government on the back foot had time to spare to hush up the calamity and its fallout. Through an order from the Revenue Principal Secretary and State Relief Commissioner to the Principal Secretary, Department of Science and Technology, the state government sought to gag Kerala’s scientific community from sharing opinions and study reports of the tragedy with the media. This move which drew significant backlash was quickly withdrawn by the state government, which had lost considerable credibility and earned significant mistrust through the move, which stank of authoritarianism from a government headed by an authoritarian Chief Minister. The centre and state governments had their own shortsighted agenda to pursue through these mean political gimmicks when lives and livelihood were lost, and had to be accounted for. The tragedy sullied by uncouth politics added to the political class’ indifference to a humanitarian crisis of gargantuan proportions.

What brought about this tragedy? Termed conveniently as ‘natural disaster’- two words with which powers-that-be wash their hands of responsibility; Pontius Pilot style! Two gentlemen, Madhav Gadgil and Kasturirangan are ecologists appointed by the government to study the fragile ecology of the Western Ghats, and to suggest recommendations to preserve the same.  Recommendations of these experts largely remained on paper, as they attributed nibbling away of the Ghats’ ecology, largely to human factor. Read mindless ransacking of the Ghats for monetary gains. Obviously, what followed was on expected lines. Culprits attempted to wriggle away from blame. The sure method to do it was to prevent reports that implicated them of wrongdoing from seeing the light of day, and to shirk off responsibility by vociferously playing votaries of ‘development’. The government prioritized ecotourism to shore up its coffers over wholesomeness of the Western Ghats. To achieve this, the Gadgil and Kastirirangan recommendations that threatened to stand in its way had to be shelved. This done, the fragile Ghats continued to be nibbled away. Surely but slowly.

Last five years saw rampant deforestation in the region. ‘Developmental’ activities like construction of roads, rail tracks and urbanization had the Global Forest Watch (GFW) which collects annual data on global forests using satellite imagery warning about the threat the Western Ghat’s biodiversity faced due to deforestation. The region lost tree coverage area equaling 20,000 rugby sports grounds, or 40,000 soccer fields. Lending credibility to the GFW’s warning, Cauvery River, the lifeline for more than 100, million dried up.

The section of the Ghats in Kerala was plundered by 5924 stone quarries. The Department of Mining and geology had given permission for only 750 quarries. Quarries which destroy the surface-level soil contribute to mudslides and landslides. Kavalappara, rendered highly fragile due to rampant quarrying had witnessed 59 people gobbled up by a massive landslide on the early morning of August 8, 2019.

Illegal construction of dams and artificial water bodies to attract tourists has added to the Ghat’s woes. The cash-rich Church which owns large tracts of land bought at throwaway prices construct concrete behemoths they call ‘schools and hospitals’ to swell pockets, as the fragility of the environment is undermined from the word go.

The casualty that resulted as the wounded Western Ghats writhed painfully in the wee hours of July 30, 2024 looked dismal, to say the least. 386 perished. 273 were injured, while 180 were reported missing. At the time of writing the Army is leaving the area of devastation, leaving nature to bury numerous who might still be trapped under the rubble without religious proceedings or gravestones to engrave epitaphs on. After all, those vain exercises don’t resurrect those who perished to the government’s callousness, indifference and unaccountability in looking the other way when hands that ought to be nurturing the environment were being greased for their aggrandizement.  

 Those who survived the backlash of a wounded environment know that life will never be the same with debris from distant hills hanging over them like the Damocles’ sword.