The 2024 Mundakkai Landslide Disaster

Sagar Dhara

Natural calamities have plagued Kerala in the recent past. The August 2018 extreme rainfall event that caused landslides in Idukki District and floods in the coastal regions that killed about 500 persons and displaced a million people was similar to the Mundakkai disaster. The 2018 extreme weather event triggered a red alert in all 14 of Kerala’s districts, affecting one-sixth of the state’s population.

These Kerala events stand in continuation of previous such extreme weather events that occurred earlier in Mumbai, Chennai, and other places. With an increase in warming, such events are predicted to increase in future. In its AR6 report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had warned that the frequency of extreme events will increase. The Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, in its 2020 “Assessment of Climate Change Over India” report, states that there would be “a higher increase in 1-day flood events is projected.”

The risk of landslides occurring is the greatest during extreme rainfall events, particularly in areas with steep slopes and that have been disturbed by developmental projects. Wayanad District bears these characteristics.

Based on past data, several government documents and research papers categorise Wayanad District as a landslide-prone area. The Landslide Atlas of India indicates that Wayanad is a landslide-prone district. The Kerala State Disaster Management Authority identifies Wayanad as being highly susceptible to landslides due to heavy rainfall, steep slopes, and deforestation.

The landslide zonation map of Wayanad District provided by The Land Slide Susceptibility Study Report of Wayanad/2023, published in 2023, indicates that the Mundakkai-Choorlamala area, where the 2024 Wayanad landslide Disaster happened, falls in the Kottapadi (Meppadi) Panchayat that is located due south of Kalpetta, is categorised as a “Very High Risk Zone.”

The Government of India invoked the legal doctrine, parens patriae, i.e., acting as a guardian for people, to seek compensation for the Bhopal gas tragedy victims when it enacted the Bhopal Gas Act in 1985. Despite recognising this role, the union and state governments have consistently failed to be the people’s guardian and save their lives in natural and man-made hazard strikes, as risk mitigation has been given low priority in government policy. There are numerous examples of the government’s failure to act as a guardian that have led to colossal loss of life in natural and manmade disasters.

For over three years before the 1984 Bhopal Gas Tragedy, the Union Carbide Bhopal plant had several accidents that killed several plant workers. Rajkumar Keshwani, a journalist, wrote several articles warning of the safety lapses at the Carbide plant and of the possibility of a catastrophic accident in the plant. Regulatory authorities and Carbide’s management ignored these warnings; consequently 25,000 people died when 42 tonnes of toxic methyl isocyanate leaked from the plant on a cold December night.

A glaring example of the government’s failure to save lives was in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. The tsunami, which originated in Sumatra, hit the Andaman Islands at about 6.30 am. The Government of India was informed of it immediately. Yet, no action was taken to evacuate fishermen from India’s east coast, which was hit 2 hours later by the tsunami. This resulted in the death of 10,000 fishermen who lived on the Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh coasts.

For four days before the Ersama super cyclone hit the Odisha coast, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) put out satellite pictures warning the Odisha Government of cyclone intensity, landfall location and time. Yet, the Odisha Government took virtually no action, and that resulted in the death of 50,000 persons.

Bhuj is a categorised Seismic Zone 5 area, i.e., a maximum earthquake risk-prone area. Bureau of Indian Standards codes for engineered and non-engineered structures (low-cost housing and slums) have existed before the 2001 Bhuj earthquake. Yet, few buildings were built using these codes. The 7.5 intensity (Richter scale) Bhuj earthquake collapsed buildings in Bhuj, Ahmedabad and other cities like a pack of cards, killing 25,000 persons. In a quake of similar magnitude that shook Seattle soon after the Bhuj quake happened, only 3 people died as structures in that city conformed to building standards for earthquakes.

The Western Ghats are an ecologically sensitive area and are at risk of landslides and rock fall in extreme weather events. Several reports have warned of this, but the union and state governments have not taken adequate measures to minimise such risk. Indiscriminate development activities that are part of the reason for the tragic loss of life in the 2018 and 2024 landslide disasters in Kerala continue to be encouraged by the government and private sectors.

It is time that state and union governments are made to realise that one of their primary duties as parens patriae is to protect people from harm during natural and manmade hazard strikes. Public pressure must be exerted on governments to make risk minimisation an important public policy priority.

Immediate Causes For The Mundakkai Disaster: Regional Context
Wayanad district, situated in the northern part of Kerala along the crest of the Western Ghats, is a landscape of high ecological value and complex terrain. Bordered by Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, the district is characterised by steep slopes, deep valleys, and a network of rivers and streams that drain toward the west coast.

Its location in the path of the southwest monsoon makes it one of Kerala’s most rainfall-rich regions. This combination of high relief and heavy precipitation creates conditions inherently favourable to landslides and floods.

However, natural vulnerability has been compounded over decades by human intervention. Since colonial times, the original evergreen forests have been extensively cleared for tea, coffee, cardamom, and rubber plantations. Logging, selective bamboo harvesting, conversion of forest land to agriculture, and tourism development have reduced the stability of slopes and altered hydrological systems.

Between 1950 and 2018, Wayanad lost more than 60% of its natural forest cover, while plantation areas increased by 1,800%. The expansion of settlements, roads, and quarrying operations has further disrupted the delicate balance between geology, vegetation, and water flow.

Rainfall Trends And Climate Change
In recent decades, climate change has altered the character of Kerala’s monsoon rainfall. While the total seasonal rainfall during the southwest monsoon has remained broadly similar, the number of rainy days has declined. The rainfall that does occur is increasingly concentrated into short, intense spells.

These high-intensity events exceed the soil’s infiltration capacity and the drainage systems’ carrying capacity, producing rapid runoff, soil erosion, and nutrient leaching. The Western Ghats’ orographic barrier forces moist southwest winds from the Arabian Sea to rise and cool, generating deep cumulonimbus clouds, sometimes up to 15 kilometres high, capable of delivering “mini cloudburst” events –intense bursts of rainfall over small areas.

Kerala has experienced several such events in quick succession in 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2024. With rising sea surface temperatures and more atmospheric moisture, the frequency and intensity of these extreme rainfall events are projected to increase, heightening the likelihood of floods, landslides, and debris flows.

Geological And Environmental Setting
Many areas in Wayanad contain kaolinite-rich clay layers, which are prone to saturation and loss of cohesion during intense rainfall. The district’s topography is dominated by steep hill slopes, escarpments, and concave slope curvatures that concentrate water flow. Parallel joint systems within the rock mass act as conduits for groundwater movement, allowing rainwater to penetrate and weaken potential slip surfaces.

In many parts of the district, poor surface drainage and elevated groundwater tables make slopes more susceptible to failure. The combination of geological weakness, steep relief, and intense seasonal rainfall creates an inherently unstable natural environment–one whose resilience has been reduced by human land use changes.

Historical Context Of Landslides In Wayanad
Landslides are not new to Wayanad District. Historical records from 1848 to 1961 document numerous natural disasters, including cyclones, floods, and earthquakes. The 1900 Thamarassery Ghat landslide, possibly triggered by a waterspout, caused extensive damage. The 1923 and 1924 monsoons brought unprecedented rainfall, leading to widespread slope failures and flooding. In 1961, the Chembra slope failure killed several plantation workers.

However, for much of the 20th century, these events were infrequent. The last two decades have broken this pattern, with an upsurge in both the number and severity of landslides, reflecting the combined influence of climate change, land use modification, and population pressure on unstable terrain.

The 2024 Mundakkai Landslide Disaster
The 30 July 2024 Mundakkai disaster was the worst landslide in Kerala’s modern history. Occurring in two phases, it began around 1:00 AM when the upper slope collapsed, blocking the Iruvazhinji Puzha River and forming a temporary dam. About three hours later, a much larger collapse breached the blockage, sending a high-energy debris flow 8 kilometres downstream through Mundakkai, Chooral-mala, and Punchirimattam.
The slope had been destabilised by the 2020 landslide, which left deep cracks that widened in subsequent monsoons. In the two days before the event, 572 mm of rain fell on already saturated terrain, lifting groundwater to the slip plane. The geology–weathered charnockite with kaolinite clay –trapped water and further reduced cohesion. This combination of antecedent slope damage, intense rainfall, and geological susceptibility produced a catastrophic deep-seated failure.

Two hundred and ninety-eight people died, with a few still missing. The event affected nearly 200 hectares, destroying homes, plantations, and infrastructure.

Human-Induced Drivers Of Risk
Decades of deforestation, forest-to-plantation conversion, and unregulated slope development have eroded Wayanad’s natural defences against landslides. Population growth has pushed settlements onto steep slopes; while roads, resorts, and other infrastructure have been built without adequate hazard assessment. Quarrying in nearby panchayats has altered hydrology and weakened slope stability, with stream losses reducing aquifer recharge and lineament damage affecting groundwater flow. Plantation practices, such as rain pits, have increased infiltration into already unstable slopes.

The cumulative effect of these activities is a significant reduction in slope stability and resilience to heavy rainfall.

Governance And Preparedness Failures
The 2009 Expert Committee identified Meppadi Panchayat, where Mundakkai lies, as highly vulnerable to deep-seated landslides due to poor drainage and unregulated slope use. Its recommendations for drainage improvements, slope regulation, and hazard zoning were not implemented.

On 29 July 2024, the Hume Centre issued a rainfall-based landslide alert 16 hours before the first landslide occurred, but this was ignored by the Wayanad District administration.

The district authorities underestimated landslide risk even though many landslides had occurred in the district recently, and outside designated hazard zones. Early warning systems, but for the one that the Hume Centre had developed, were non-existent. Actionable landslide emergency response plans and evacuation protocols had not been developed, leaving communities unprepared when the landslides occurred.

Socioeconomic And Ecological Impacts
Most victims were plantation workers, small farmers, and marginalised communities living in hazard-prone areas. The disaster’s toll went beyond the immediate loss of life and, for most of the evacuees, permanent displacements from their homes. Their livelihoods, which were tied to tea, coffee, and spice cultivation, were destroyed. Agricultural land was lost to debris, fertile soils were eroded, and the destruction of streams and aquifer recharge zones reduced long-term water security.

Infrastructure, including roads, bridges, and community facilities, was swept away. The loss of forest patches, plantation crops, and riparian vegetation degraded biodiversity and habitat connectivity. For affected communities, the disaster also severed deep cultural and historical ties to the land.

Inconvenient Question
The main issue in the 2024 Mundakkai Disaster is not how and why the landslide happened. Landslides in Kerala have been studied extensively, and the how and why they happen is understood. The main issue is that despite extensive knowledge about landslide-prone areas being available, why did the Kerala Government not enact land use laws to ensure that homes and workspaces were not located in landslide pathways, and why did the Wayanad District administration failed to take steps to minimise the loss of life in Mundakkai.

Negligence In Upholding Art. 21 Of The Constitution
Article 21 of the Indian Constitution, which guarantees the fundamental right to life and personal liberty, has been interpreted by the Indian judiciary to include the right to a healthy environment. A healthy environment means an environment where the risk of morbidity and mortality due to environmental causes is minimised.

The Kerala Government has been negligent in upholding Article 21 of the Constitution, as it did not take the steps necessary to minimise landslide risk despite adequate information being available about such risks well before the 2024 Mundakkai Disaster.

Moreover, the Kerala Government failed to act as the guardian of the Mundakkai people. The 1985 Bhopal Gas Act, based on the legal doctrine of parens patriae, confers the state with the power to act as the guardian of those who cannot care for themselves.

The state’s basic duty is to look after the welfare of all its citizens, and public health is central to this duty. If the state is negligent in performing its duty, it must compensate for injury and death.

Background Causes For The 2024 Mundakkai Disaster
The gap between actual and perceived risk makes risk mitigation difficult.

Human perception of risk is how we assess the probability of a hazardous event happening and what impact it may have. Risk perception is usually at variance with actual risk, i.e., the probability of the event happening. Human response to risk is driven by the human perception of risk, and not the actual risk.

To mitigate risk, the gap between actual and perceived risk is material, and not which of them is greater at a given point in time. The wider the gap, the more difficult it is to alter human behaviour to mitigate risk. Attempts to reduce risk through rules, laws, legislation, curfews, fines, campaigns, and other administrative methods do little to alter human behaviour to risk unless accompanied by programmes geared to alter risk perception.

The Wayanad District administration did not take note of the extremely heavy rainfall that occurred on 28-29 July or act on the Hume Centre’s landslide warning, as they underestimated the risk of a landslide occurring. The lack of a Mundakkai-specific landslide emergency response plan is due to the same reason.

Price And Value Of Life
Human life can have a price and a value. The price of human life is measured like a commodity in monetary terms and is determined by market forces. The value of life is the extent to which a society nurtures and supports the life of every individual in that society, without exception. High value of life societies invest in people because they are humans and attempt to minimise all risks they face–from disease, human violence, pestilence, natural and man-made hazards, hunger, etc.

A high life price does not automatically imply that it is a high value of life, and vice versa. There are high price and value of life societies, eg, Sweden; high price but low value of life societies, eg, USA; low price but high value of life societies, eg, Cuba; and low price and low value of life societies, eg, India.

India will invest in risk minimisation and take care of its citizens’ welfare better when it starts transitioning from a low to a high-value-of-life country. But that road may have to be taken by raising the price of life, as has been done in the USA and Europe.

The transition from high price to high value of life can be completed only when society moves from a “Gain maximisation for a few” outlook to a “Risk minimisation for all” one.

Recommendations To Mundakkai Disaster Victims
The victims of the 2024 Mundakkai Landslide Disaster should ask the Union and Kerala governments to take the following measures. These measures involve public participation of the local community to the maximum extent possible to make Mundakkai-Choorlamala a safer place. It is only through such people’s participation in risk reduction programmes can public risk behaviour can change.

General
*  Implement Kerala Government Expert Committee recommendations: Implement the recommendations made by the Expert Committee constituted by the Kerala Government to study the 2024 Mundakkai Choorla-mala Landslide (see Annexe 6 in Chapter titled, “The Mundakkai Disaster: Not an Act of God”). And if some provisions are not implemented, the government should offer a public explanation for it.

*   Implement WGEEP, SESA and KESA report recommendations: Implement the recommendations made by the Report of the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel and the recommendations made by the Sahyadri Ecologically Sensitive Area Report, and the Kodachadri Sensitive Area Report. And if some provisions are not implemented, the government should offer a public explanation for it.

*   Meppadi Panchayat to do implementation: The implementation of the recommendations made by the Kerala Government Expert Panel, WGEEP, SESA and KESA reports should, to the maximum extent possible, be done by the Meppadi Panchayat.

*   Remove people from landslide pathways: Enact land use laws to remove people from the landslide pathways.

*   Copy Hume Centre’s data collection and landslide warning method: Emulate the Hume Centre’s experiment with People’s Science in setting up a system of basic meteorological stations in the villages that are at risk in Meppadi Panchayat to monitor rainfall and temperature. Train the Panchayat to work on models that correlate rainfall with the probability of landslides and floods. Give due recognition to the Hume Centre’s work on landslide disasters.

*   Meppadi Panchayat to do Landslide Emergency Response Plan: Train members of Meppadi Panchayat to write site-specific Landslide Emergency Response Plans that includes: Criteria for sounding a landslide alert, a system for issuing a landslide warning that reaches all those at risk, a plan and an organisation for rescue, evacuation, relief and rehabilitation of people and domestic animals, transport, medical aid plans, vulnerable population identification, list of individuals and organizations that can assist during emergencies, evacuation camps, response organization structure and details of its specific responsibilities, control centre and its working, list of emergency equipment and location of various useful machinery, emergency management of relief camps, declaring emergency authority, mobilizing human and material resources, medical aid, ending emergency, rehabilitation, etc.

*   Support Karunya’s work: The work of community-based organisations such as Karunya should be recognised, encouraged, supported and emulated.

*   Meppadi to do development planning: Meppadi Panchayat should be given the authority to determine the extent of development—land use change, extent of plantations and development that should be permitted, i.e., building new roads, extent of quarrying and tourism to be permitted, etc. The extent of development that is sustainable should be debated in the Meppadi Panchayat. Criteria for determining sustainable development are fuzzy, and therefore, they must be debated extensively in public forums in Meppadi Panchayat.

*   Meppadi Panchayat to give project consent: In keeping in line with the 73rd and 74th amendments to the Indian Constitution, new development projects must necessarily have the consent of Meppadi Panchayat. Criteria for acceptable/unacceptable impact of projects must be established. Such criteria have been developed for India, but have not been implemented.

*   Compensate Mundakkai deaths @15 crores/death: It is difficult to raise the value of life when the dominant global outlook is “Gain maximisation for a few”. Life will truly be valued when the global outlook changes to “Risk minimisation for all”, which will take time. The route to increasing the value of life is by first increasing the price of life so that it is cheaper to prevent loss of life than to pay compensation. A compensation of 15 crores per death should be paid if it is due to proven negligence of the government or any of its arms.

Climate Change
*   Sustainability: Kerala Government must pledge to fully decarbonise Kerala State by 2045-50. Decarbonisation must focus primarily on:

a) Mitigation focused on the reduction of consumption levels and on supply-side management.

b) Sequestration focused on Nature-based Solutions that centre climate and social justice. In addition, decarbonisation strategies must eschew failed, untested, hypothetical market-based solutions and techno-fixes. Through these means, gross consumption should be reduced to sustainable levels, the measure for which should be a quantifiable justice-centric sustainability index.

*   Environmental justice: Kerala Government should request the Union Government to lobby in COP meetings for environmental justice to become a central guiding principle for tackling the climate crisis, where environmental justice means:

a) Responsibility for loss & damage: Nations/regions take responsibility for climate change impacts attributable to them—displacement, property loss, etc—in proportion to their cumulative emissions (emissions from 1750 to date);

b) Sharing benefits and risks equitably: Engineering and administrative controls should be put into place (e.g., global warming mitigative and adaptive measures, facilitating population migration where risk becomes high) such that all people of the world face about the same degree of risk from the impacts of GHG emissions; and the wealth created by the use of fossil fuels are distributed equally to all people of the world.

*   Equity: The ratio of the maximum to minimum income in Kerala should be less than 5.

*   Decentralisation, democratic, transparent governance: Governance should be decentralised and democratic; all governance information should be in the public domain.

[Sagar Dhara, Member, Most ferocious predator that ever-stalked Earth—humans; College-educated; Male; Upper caste and class; City slicker. Email: sagdhara@gmail.com ]

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Vol 58, No. 14 - 17, Sep 28 - Oct 25, 2025