NDRF personnel conduct a rescue operation and rescue the loacls in Waynad, Kerala.
Credit: Special Arrangement
New Delhi/Thiruvananthapuram: A blame game erupted over Wayanad disaster on Wednesday with Union Home Minister Amit Shah blaming Kerala government for “not heeding” to prior warning sent as early as July 23 leading to vast devastation, a charge denied by Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.
Despite stating that the union government stands firm with Kerala in dealing with the aftermath of the tragedy, Shah accused the state of not being alerted by the magnitude of the disaster and the arrival of nine National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) battalions. If they had acted on time, he said, several lives could have been saved.
His remarks in Rajya Sabha came as a couple of MPs like Raghav Chadha, Jebi Mather and AA Rahim demanded that early warning systems should have been there to warn states on such disasters.
Mather and Rahim alleged that there was no early warning system that could have come out in help for Kerala. Shah also made similar remarks in Lok Sabha.
Shah said early warning alerts were sent to Kerala on July 23, 24, 25 and 26 about possible landslides. He said several other states had heeded early warning and there had been zero casualty there.
“A week before cyclone's landfall a warning was given to Odisha and there was only one death. A cyclone warning three days prior to the event in Gujarat ensured that not even a single animal was killed...What did the Kerala government do to help the vulnerable? Why were they not evacuated? If they were shifted, why are there so many deaths,” he said.
Vijayan described Shah’s remarks as “baseless” while insisting that what the Home Minister meant was Indian Meteorological Department’s (IMD) weather reports, which the state gave due importance and took precautions accordingly.
He said the IMD issued an orange alert for the landslide hit area only till Tuesday morning and the area recieved 572 mm rainfall in 48 hours. Whereas the warning the meteorological department gave was for 115 mm to 204 mm rainfall in two days.
“Even on July 29 afternoon, only an orange alert was sounded by IMD. Only after the occurrence of landslide did the IMD issue a red alert,” he said, adding the Geological Survey of India, which installed a landslide warning system in Wayanad, also sounded only green alert for July 30 and 31.
It means that the central government agency only forecasted chances for minor landslides or landslips, Vijayan said ,adding the Central Water Commission also did not sound a flood alert.
Participating in the debate in Rajya Sabha, MPs like John Brittas and Rahim (CPIM), Mather (Congress), Saket Gokhale (Trinamool Congress) and Mujibullah Khan (BJD) among others demanded that the Wayanad disaster be declared a national calamity.
In the last seven years, Brittas said, around 60 per cent or 2,239 out of 3,582 landslides that occurred in the country were in Kerala. He urged the union government to provide all possible help in dealing with the aftermath of the situation.
Mather said the Rs two lakh compensation announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi was "very less" and demanded that it should be raised to Rs 25 lakh. Gokhale demanded that Modi should conduct an aerial survey, which will give a lot of confidence to the people.
DMK floor leader Tiruchi Siva said deforestation is one of the main reasons for such disasters and there should be an immediate stop to it.
BJP's Surender Singh Nagar sought to drag Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, a former MP from Wayanad, into the debate by saying that if he was serious enough about Wayanad earlier, he would have raised the issues earlier.
Rahul had resigned as Wayanad MP and decided to retain Rae Bareli, a second seat which he won in the recent Lok Sabha elections.