It is official now. The Union Home Minister Amit Shah was lying through his teeth in the Parliament when he said that Kerala was issued necessary warnings about the excessive rains that caused the killer landslide of June 30. It's even more abominable that the Union Minister tried to score political brownies even after such a horrendous human tragedy.

The central agencies with the prime responsibility to issue disaster warnings failed, and hundreds of poor people paid the price with their lives and lifetime savings.

However, can the central agencies’ criminal fault absolve the Kerala government’s abject failure to protect people even after the state has suffered recurrent disasters year after year? Haven't our governments - both UDF and LDF- crassly neglected the several stern warnings issued for over a decade by scientists and environmentalists like Prof Madhav Gadgil? Haven't they let wanton destruction of the ecologically sensitive region’s fragile environment to go on for years by unscrupulous lobbies with money and muscle? Worst of all, isn't the present government still going ahead with disastrous projects, which are a sure recipe for even more devastating tragedies? Can we be more stupidly self-destructive?

What can justify the state government’s much-trumpeted Kozhikode-Wayanad Tunnel (KWT), the 8.75 kilometre-long, twin-tube underpass connecting the two districts, which is to pierce right through the same region, ravaged now by the killer landslide that killed so many? If any humanity or wisdom is left with the state government, it should immediately halt its construction, at least until more comprehensive and authoritative environmental impact studies are done, considering the suffering that just took place. More so, since the Central Government-constituted State Environment Impact Assessment Authority- Kerala (SEIAA) raised serious reservations over KWT in May this year. This is even after the project won in April 2023 the preliminary clearance from the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change.

The SEIAA’s Environment Appraisal Committee has warned that the KWT would aggravate the already escalated human-animal conflicts and other severe environmental issues. It has specifically cited the project’s alignment passes near Puthumala, where the 2019 massive landslide occurred. Only Puthumala was mentioned probably because the report was submitted before the latest landslide took place just a few kilometres away. SEIAA Kerala is authorised to deal with environmental clearance for projects under Category “B” of Schedule in EIA notifications, 2006.

The need to halt KWT has assumed extreme urgency as the construction of the Rs 2044 crore project entrusted with the Konkan Railway Corporation is scheduled to begin this month. Or will the Pinarayi government stick........

© Mathrubhumi English