Mitigating landslide risk in the Northeast

 The rain-triggered catastrophic landslide in Himachal Pradesh, which claimed many lives, is a wake-up call for the Northeast region. With the region accounting for about 44% of the country’s landslide-prone districts, similar disasters are waiting to happen if timely mitigation measures are not taken. Event-based post-disaster rescue and rehabilitation continue to dominate landslide risk management as the advancement in scientific understanding of region-specific landslides is yet to be fully transferred to measures aimed at mitigating the risks. The National Landslide Atlas of India released by the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) of the Indian Space Research Organisation in February this year shows that Mizoram accounted for the highest number of landslides in the country over the past two and a half decades, followed by Uttarakhand. While the scientific community has made significant breakthroughs in indentifying and mapping the landslide zones and imparting training on risk mitigation and management, the unplanned horizontal and vertical growth of capital cities and towns in the region speaks volumes about the yawning gap between scientific knowledge and its application in risk management. One of the immediate triggers in recent landslide tragedies in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand is attributed to an increase in extreme weather events like cloud bursts. There has been a noticeable increase in extreme weather events like large excess rainfall in the northeast region too, which calls for all states and urban authorities to prioritise landslide risk mitigation instead of waiting for disasters to happen. The increase in population pressure in cities in the region, driven by rural-to-urban migration on account of growth in the economy, has made the cities and important towns congested and crowded. High-rise buildings have been constructed on unstable hill slopes and ridges to accommodate growing urban dwellers. As the growth of cities has outpaced the capacity building of the city authorities and departments concerned, effective enforcement of land use and building codes in vertically growing cities in the region continues to be elusive. As the region is located in a high seismic zone, the risk of twin disasters looms large over the landslide-prone areas. The States need to undertake a comprehensive review of their preparedness to handle rescue, relief, and rehabilitation in the event of twin or multiple disasters striking simultaneously. One way of preparing communities for potential disaster risks is to make them aware of them and create the space for their active participation in risk management. Raising awareness among the people about the warnings issued by the scientific community about the potential landslide risks and recommendations on which they can play their part needs to be prioritised in city and urban planning. People voluntarily refraining from constructing buildings or purchasing flats in multi-story apartments on plots without ascertaining if those have been marked as landslide-prone or disaster-prone can go a long way in improving risk mitigation. They need to be informed first about the risks in order to be able to play such a role. Decoding landslide risks as identified in the national atlas of landslides or national landslide susceptibility mapping in simple and plain language for residents of identified zones is essential to inform the people and empower them to ask for maps showing the landslide-prone zones when they seek building permission or other construction activities. The push for faster development in the region has led to the fast tracking of highway expansion projects and mega hydropower projects. States in the region insisting on the landslide risk mitigation plan in the case of mega projects at the stage of conducting feasibility studies will ensure timely intervention for realignment to reduce landslide risk during and after construction. Catastrophic landslides in Dima Hasao district in Assam last year following large excess rains resulting in dislocation of the Lumding-Silchar railway line at multiple locations could have been avoided if the warning issued by geologists at the construction stage was not ignored by the Railway authorities. Landslide-prone areas in the region are located on difficult and rugged terrain, which makes post-disaster rescue and rehabilitation an enormous challenge for local authorities. Besides, these operations also involve huge costs in mobilising men and equipment for rescue operations and providing compensation to affected families for rehabilitation. Avoiding construction in landslide-prone zones or taking adequate measures to mitigate landslide risks, therefore, remains the pragmatic approach while pushing for development projects in the region. Government agencies and the scientific community working with indigenous communities to understand their traditional knowledge on landslide risk mitigation and explore the scope of application of such knowledge and understanding may help improve landslide management. This can also create the desired space for the participation of local communities in landslide risk mitigation initiatives undertaken by the government. The Central and State governments providing financial support for landslide monitoring by the scientific community is of paramount importance. States in the region cannot wait for the worst landside events to happen. Lessons must be learned from past events to put a landslide early warning system in place.