The battle between man, rain and earth slips

Heavy rain in the recent past caused havoc, especially in the hill country and many people perished or was rendered homeless as a result of numerous earth slips. Also in the aftermath quite a few roads became impassable and the rescue efforts were hampered. Even today those travelling to Nuwara Eliya and beyond, have to use alternate and often longer roads.

The Road Development Authority (RDA) has been hard at work since the first earth slip. But how much have they accomplished? ST1 spoke to the Chairman of the RDA M. B. S. Fernando to get the answer and what preventive measures if any can be taken.

"Most locations where earth slips occur had been identified years ago. But once things settled down people moved back to the very same locations. Now it is up to the authorities to give these people an incentive to stay on once they are relocated. Another factor is people some times build houses on locations where earth slips have occurred years ago. Once the rain begins, the water seeps under the soil which is not on a solid base in the first place. Thus once again you get an earth slip," said Fernando.

Fernando also attributed the blasting of rock, illegal tree felling and cultivation as the cause for earth slips. As for a prior warning he said: "We do warn people who are in located in places where earth slips can occur. But more often than not they wait for the very last minute to move. This can result is loss of lives."

As for the road clearing process, Fernando said that they had cleared the road from Mathurata up to the 45th kilometre and now light vehicles can use this road. "In the area where we are having problems is a three kilometre stretch from Randenigala. On this road boulders ranging in size from 30 to 40 metres have fallen. First we have to blast each of these boulders and only then can we clear and repair the road. This is a time consuming process and there is also an element of risk involved.

A time frame is hard to give because in some areas we have to clear the road more than once. By that I mean once we clear the debris from one earth slip, the rain comes again and another occurs. As a result we are back to square one. Furthermore since the forecast is for more rain, obviously our efforts to clear and repair will slow down," said Fernando in conclusion.