A landmark report released a year after the devastating landslide in Kerala’s Wayanad district has concluded that the tragedy was not a natural disaster but a direct result of reckless human activity and institutional failure. The study, titled Sliding Earth, Scattered Lives, labels the catastrophe a “grey rhino event”—a highly probable disaster that was ignored by authorities despite clear and mounting warnings. The landslides in July 2024 left 231 people dead and 119 still missing.
A Foreseeable Tragedy Ignored
The independent People’s Scientific Study Committee, which authored the report, spent ten months investigating the disaster. Their findings are unambiguous: the hills of Mundakkai and Chooralmala, which collapsed with a thunderous roar, had been previously identified as ecologically sensitive areas by expert panels.
Despite recommendations to restrict development, successive governments allowed settlements, plantations, resorts, and roads to expand onto the fragile slopes, stripping them of their natural resilience. The report points out that a local research center had already warned that the region was at risk if rainfall exceeded 600 mm within two days, a threshold that was breached just before the collapse.
A Failure in Disaster Management
The report delivers a harsh indictment of the official response, noting that lives could have been saved if basic emergency protocols were in place. The Kerala State Disaster Management Authority had no site-specific plan for the affected area, and evacuations were limited to only a single ward, leaving other vulnerable villages exposed to the calamity. The committee concludes that the tragedy was a case of “governance sleepwalking into tragedy.”
Beyond criticism, the report provides a clear path forward, calling on Kerala to empower local governments to create emergency plans, upgrade meteorological forecasting to a hyper-local scale, and halt reckless development in ecologically sensitive areas. The committee urges the state to finally align its policies with the recommendations of past ecological reports to prevent similar catastrophes and ensure the safety of its communities.