The Agriculture Department will recommend a high-level study into the repeated landslips after extremely heavy rainfall under Udumbanchola taluk areas. Officials said that, within a 15-day gap, two panchayats under the taluk witnessed extremely heavy rainfall, which resulted in landslips and crop damage. The latest incident occurred on Sunday evening in Santhanpara panchayat areas, and it caused large-scale damage to farmland and crop loss. Nearly one acre of agricultural land was washed away in a landslip following heavy rain at Pachadi near Nedumkandam under Udumbanchola taluk on October 23. According to officials, the landslip occurred around 1 a.m. following a three-hour-long heavy rainfall.
Deputy Director of Agriculture(Credit) Idukki, Ambily C., said that the landslips at Santhanpara was almost of the same magnitude as at Puthumala or Kavalappara .
“As per the primary assessment by the Agriculture Department, a total of 23.5 hectares of agricultural land was destroyed due to serial landslips. With this, 10 hectares of agricultural land fully washed away, “ said Ms. Ambily.
“The repeated landslips mainly affected small and medium farmers in the panchayat. The landslips caused huge losses to the farmers. The Agriculture Department will suggest a high-level study of the extremely heavy rainfall in a taluk area. Normally, Thodupuzha and Peermade areas in Idukki are considered heavy rainfall receiving regions, and others are rain shadow areas. But the pattern has changed, and Udumbanchola taluk receives extremely heavy rainfall and has landslips. It was suspected that a mini cloudburst occurred in the region on Sunday. I will visit the area on Wednesday and review the crop and land loss,” said Ms. Ambily.
Assistant Professor of Geology, University of Kerala, Sajinkumar K. S., said that the high slope and overburden thickness are the major reasons for the recent landslips in Udumbanchola taluk in Idukki.
“The triggering factor of the landslip was extremely heavy rainfall. To minimize the casualties of such incidents, establish Automatic Weather Stations(AWS) and provide timely warnings,” said Dr. Sajinkumar.
Rajappan, a small-scale farmer from Pethotty near Santhanpara, said that due to the landslip, he lost nearly 350 cardamom plants and almost one acre of land has been washed away. “The landslip started from a three-km hill and now the area is filled with huge rock pieces. Farming on this land is impossible ,” said Mr Rajappan.
Idukki MP, Dean Kuriakose and Udumbanchola MLA, M. M. Mani visited the landslip areas on Tuesday.
