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Landslides: DMC blames people for ignoring warnings and evacuation plans
A rising number are dying in landslides, because most people are disregarding risk warnings and evacuation procedures, the Disaster Management Centre (DMC) claimed.
“The reason why so many deaths still occur is because people refuse to listen to us and ignore the instructions we have given them regarding risk warnings and evacuation,” DMC Assistant Director Pradeep Kodipilli claimed. The official said many people refused to evacuate because they did not want to leave their property behind.
“But lives are more important. This chain is interconnected so people need to help us to save their lives,” he said, adding that Government compensation for damaged property could be looked into later.
According to the DMC official, residents of landslide-prone areas are informed and prepared for the evacuation plans that are activated when necessary.
The issue arose when people ignored the warnings and failed to adhere to the evacuation plans.
Government officials inform area residents of the evacuation route they need to take when leaving an area, following a warning from the DMC. These warnings are communicated to residents via SMS, through local officials, house-to-house Police visits, sirens and in more ways, he said.
School premises are usually used and mechanisms are in place for food and medical supplies for the designated number of families coming into each centre. This system has been in place since 2005 and the DMC run evacuation drills for people living in these areas so they are prepared if and when the time comes. Each house has a notice outlining the evacuation route the residents should take and the name of the evacuation centre allotted to them.
Kegalle Divisional Secretary Mahinda Weerasooriya said drills were conducted about twice a year in his area for residents from high-risk locations.
The Divisional Secretariats often received alerts from the DMC and then transferred these to the grama niladhari officers to communicate to the residents. Village disaster management committees had been set up under the purview of the grama niladhari officers and these committees maintained databases of contact information for families living in the area. Two-way communication existed between the committee and the community as it acted as a link in the communications between the two.
“We usually call or go to the houses if we do not get through,” said K.A.T. N. Hewakumari, the grama niladhari officer at Hewadiwela in Rambukkana.
The National Building Research Organisation (NBRO) Landslides Studies Division Chief R.M.S. Bandara said even then some people still ignored the warnings.
“People make daily activity a priority even after we have given a red alert sometimes and this is causing concern,” he said.
Mr Bandara said the risk and harm were exacerbated when the buildings erected in these disaster-prone areas were not built according to proper regulations.
“When someone comes to us for approval to build a house we usually look at their plans and advise them on what needs to change to ensure that their construction is solid,” he said.
The approval would be granted for these constructions only when the applicants restructured their designs based on the instructions and report given by the NBRO. But according to Mr Bandara, the absence of a consistent follow-up by the district and divisional secretariat offices was causing serious problems.
Mr Bandara said generally only people who had sought loans came to the authorities for approval. People buying through other means do not even fall under the radar of the authorities until the houses were built. Since 2011 the NBRO has released 75,000 reports, he said.
“Sometimes we even advise people to abandon their lands because it is too dangerous and when this happens the Government usually gives them Rs. 1.2 Mn to build another house and Rs. 400,000 to buy more land,” he said.
He said he believed the money allocated was sufficient to buy lands in those particular areas. Despite all these problems, he said, signage with evacuation notices were still displayed in a large bill-board like fashion on the roads of these areas.
Badly built drainage systems and improper construction were among the human-made causes of landslides, he said.