THIRUVANANTHAPURAM : Home Minister Amit Shah’s statement that Kerala was given repeated early warnings has put central weather agencies functioning in the state on the defensive as no specific warning was issued about landslides.
Officials with the India Meteorological Department (IMD), Geological Survey of India (GSI) and the Central Water Commission (CWC) find themselves in a quandary. One official, it is learnt, even checked if Shah was referring to an ‘intelligence report’ from his ministry.
After the union minister made the statement in the Parliament, the state government checked the data. High-ranking officials including Chief Secretary V Venu were present at the control room of the State Disaster Management Authority, which gets daily reports and alerts from central agencies. Only after this cross verification did Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan counter Shah’s statement.
The state’s counter also underscored the difficulty in carrying out disaster mitigation in the absence of specific data and alerts. IMD faced criticism for not issuing a red alert to indicate a severe risk to life from extreme weather conditions. The landslide occurred early on July 30, but IMD upgraded their orange alert to red only hours later, at 6am.
A red alert is issued when the rainfall is likely to exceed 200mm in 24 hours. The IMD has three rainfall monitoring stations, seven automatic weather stations and three automatic rain gauge stations in Wayanad. Besides, they have a radar system in Kochi, which can provide real-time weather data to far-off locations like Wayanad.
“Continuous rain in a risky location matched by the radar data should have alerted the authorities. The radar data is updated every 30 minutes,” an officer said.
While IMD’s weather station recorded only 280mm at the nearest site, rain stations of other organisations recorded 372mm of rainfall at Kalladi and Puthumala in the 24 hours ended on Tuesday morning.
Meanwhile, officers at the Meteorological Centre in Thiruvananthapuram chose not to respond on whether early warning was issued. The IMD headquarters in Delhi is likely to come out with an explanation in that regard.
GSI, another agency responsible for issuing landslide alerts, got it completely wrong as it issued a green alert from 2.30pm on July 29 to the subsequent 24 hours. An official with GSI admitted that the rainfall-induced landslide warning system was installed recently and only the trials were happening.
The Central Water Commission, which is responsible for issuing flood warnings, too did not issue any warning for either river Iruvazhinji or the Chaliyar from July 23 to 29. An official with GSI admitted that the rainfall-induced landslide warning system was installed recently and only the trials were happening.
The Central Water Commission, which is responsible for issuing flood warnings, too did not issue any warning for either river Iruvazhinji or the Chaliyar from July 23 to 29.