Critics of the twin-tube road tunnel project in Kerala’s Kozhikode-Wayanad section, aggressively pursued by the erstwhile LDF government, will feel vindicated that their worst fears have come true with a deadly monsoon mudslide that has killed at least three people and possibly buried many more. The tunnel was pitched as a dream solution to connect Anakkampoyil in Kozhikode district with Meppadi in Wayanad, cutting travel time and making better medical care accessible to remote communities. Drilling through an ancient mountain that experiences peaks of 100 cm of rainfall a day in the Western Ghats to create an 8.3 km tunnel, using powerful explosives, is a highly complicated endeavour that cannot be hastily executed to create a political showpiece. The project proposal did not go........

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