Editorial
The hills are alive with the sound of landslides
View(s):The drought came first, heaping untold misery upon man and beast. The deluge followed and, with it, a sweeping landslide. A succession of environmental disasters in recent years has proved that Sri Lanka remains ill-equipped to mitigate threats and save precious lives. If anything, the country is racing towards bigger catastrophes.
The Koslanda landslide on October 29 — it now has a Wikipedia entry of its own — is a case in point. Ironically, the tragedy struck just weeks from the tenth anniversary of the tsunami. In the past decade, there has been a flurry of workshops and seminars. Officials studied disaster preparedness abroad. Experts came to strengthen local mechanisms and to inundate administrators with know-how.
But the events preceding and following the Koslanda tragedy show that the most elementary of mitigation, preparedness and management strategies had failed. An essential requirement of any preparedness programme is quick, efficient coordination among state and non-state institutions. It just did not happen. Today, even two weeks after the disaster, the right hand says it did not know what the left was doing.
The landslide was not unexpected. The National Building Research Organisation (NBRO) had not only mapped and identified the Meeriyabedda area of Koslanda in the Badulla district, as high-risk, its experts had reportedly issued danger warnings. It had been pouring in the weeks prior to the Koslanda landslide.
Data from the Meteorological Department’s Poonagala recording station showed that the area had received an average of 64mm of rain a day from October 23 to 29. On October 26 (three days before the disaster) there was 137mm of rain; 102mm on October 27 and, on the morning of the landslide, 80mm. All this precipitation had made the ground in a high risk, landslide-prone area, soggy and unstable. It was, to say the least, a calamity waiting to happen — and happen, it did, to the anguish of impoverished families that had spent a lifetime toiling on tea estates.
The landslide soon gave way to a flood of recriminations, buck-passing and bureaucratic shenanigans that have done little to alleviate the anguish of victims. Everyone from the dead to the estate management companies, local authorities, geologists, officials and ministers have been blamed. Yet, nobody is responsible!
And it is still not clear what went wrong. The NBRO says it had flagged the dangers well in advance. The Disaster Management Centre was tasked with conveying these to the public through the Divisional Secretariat and the respective Grama Niladharis. The DMC claims the message was passed on, on October 28 and that the families were readying to evacuate the next morning.
But the estate management charges that officials had not apprised them of the seriousness of the threat, despite many superintendents having being present on the field. And if the residents had been planning to shift, why had they sent their children to school?
Plantation Industries Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe told journalists that the NBRO had issued a warning to the estate management in 2011, saying estate workers needed to be relocated. It was not done, he said. In other words, the private sector was to blame. The Government might now use this as an excuse to wrest estates back from private management more quickly, something it has already said it would do.
Typically, however, housing, sanitation, nutrition and other welfare activities on estates are carried out by the Government-run Plantation Housing Development Trust and management companies. Warnings of impending disaster should also have been handled in conjunction. There should primarily have been an evacuation effort with viable alternatives offered. Given the vulnerability of the area, drills should be in place, and have been conducted regularly.
There is another risk here — that of disaster warnings not being taken seriously. It was better to be safe than sorry. In our editorial of April 3, 2005, just four months after that dreaded tsunami, we stressed that a warning in some shape or form is always better than none. But we also pointed to the “wolf factor”; if one cried “wolf, wolf” all too often, when the real wolf comes along, no one takes the alert seriously.
This is proven by a plantation management official (not of the company running the affected estate) confiding that the NBRO issues warnings from time to time. Sometimes, they were right. But often, they were not. To avoid these debacles in future, Sri Lanka needs to conduct an honest, relentless appraisal of what had gone wrong this time in Koslanda. It does not need prevarication, half-baked truths or outright lies with the Government determined to keep the death toll down. According to official figures, 12 people died and 22 are unaccounted for while trade unionists, contesting the official figures, say 44 people are dead or missing. More than 6,000 people are displaced. The shortcomings and failures in the current system need to be identified so that corrective measures can be taken.
In fact, the country has an excellent structure in place — on paper. Post-tsunami a National Disaster Management Council was set up under the Sri Lanka Disaster Management Act of 2005. It is chaired by the President (no less) with the Prime Minister as vice-chair. It comprises the Leader of the Opposition and five other Opposition members; Chief Ministers of the provinces; and the ministers in charge of 23 subjects from land and housing to external affairs and education. While it is legally bound to meet a minimum of three times per year, it has convened only once in 2014.
The DMC was established under the Council as a 24-hour emergency operations hub. It is expected to coordinate and collaborate with ministries, departments, agencies, authorities and local bodies at all levels, armed forces, police, national and international NGOs and the private sector. This newspaper welcomed both initiatives when they were set up, saying they would avoid confusion and streamline information. Nine years later, it is time to take stock.
Things will only get worse for the earth. Torrential rains have killed and displaced hundreds of people in other parts of South Asia, particularly North India and parts of Pakistan. On November 2 (last Sunday), a 5000-page UN report warned that global warming was now causing more heat extremes, downpours, acidifying the oceans and pushing up sea levels.
Sri Lanka shows no sign of gearing up for the challenge. It continues to be reactive. Take the simple example of notices posted along the Colombo-Badulla road that caution users of possible landslides. What purpose do these serve once a person is already en-route? What is required is a geological resurvey, with serious attention given to water retention in soil. Sri Lanka cannot afford to wait till the next mountain collapses.
Repeated warnings about deforestation and resultant soil erosion are being ignored. The hills are caving in under the pressure of unsafe construction. Landslides are occurring in many other areas, not just the Badulla district. Sand mining continues unabated, despite the Supreme Court attempting to introduce controls. Land filling is causing floods. The laws are brazenly flouted often by local politicians wielding power in tow with the local police. It boils down to whose palms are oiled and by how much.
What we must never forget is that at the end of the line, there are innocent lives at stake. The terrible deaths of Koslanda should not become just another statistic. The blame game must cease and it is more important to know what is to blame than who is to blame.