Landslides – Causes, Impact and Management of Landslides in India – Explained Pointwise

Landslides are among India’s most destructive natural hazards, particularly in the Himalayas and the Western Ghats. The recent landslide in Wayanad at a tunnel construction site, which claimed at least three lives and left several workers missing, has once again highlighted the vulnerability of ecologically fragile regions to extreme rainfall, unsafe construction practices, and inadequate disaster risk management.
This catastrophe has again put the spotlight on the reports of the Madhav Gadgil Committee (2011) and the K Kasturirangan-led High Level Working Group (2013), which had recommended that these areas to be demarcated as Ecologically Sensitive Areas. However, these were met with resistance and never implemented.

What are landslides? What is the status of India’s Vulnerability to Landslides?

• Landslide: Landslides are the downward movement of rock, soil, debris, or earth material along a slope under the influence of gravity. They occur when the stability of a slope is disturbed by natural factors such as heavy rainfall, earthquakes, volcanic activity, and erosion, or by human activities like deforestation, mining, road construction, and unplanned urbanization.
• Types of Landslides:

Vulnerability of India to Landslides:

Recent Incidents in India:

Wayanad (2024)	One of the deadliest landslides in India’s recent history. Factors behind the Wayanad Landslide: 1. Wayanad witnessed 140mm of rainfall, with some areas reporting more than 300 mm of rainfall. This rainfall was about five times more than IMD’s projections. 2. Overflow in the Chaliyar river swept more sediment downstream. This was due to the fact that heavy rains in 2020 had caused the Chaliyar to strip swaths of its upstream areas of plant cover. This left more rocks and humus vulnerable to being displaced. 3. The heavy rainfall has saturated with moisture. The water reaches the rocks by flowing between the soil and the rock layers. This weakens the force that binds the soil to the rocks and triggers the movement. 4. Quarrying, linear infrastructure development, and construction activities have compromised ecosystems’ ability to cope with changing natural conditions. 5. Monocropping, has resulted in the cut down of large, native trees, which serve to hold the topsoil to the bedrock. The replacement of these native trees with big plantation crops, such as tea and coffee having shallow roots, has increased the vulnerability. 6. According to a study by the International Journal of Environment and Public Health, Wayanad has lost 60% of its forests between 1950 and 2018. The erosion of the green cover has made Kerala susceptible to landslides. 7. Climate Change has been leading to gradual warming of the Arabian Sea leading to the formation of a deep cloud system over parts of the Western Ghats.
Dharali (2025)	Intense rainfall triggered landslides and debris flows in Uttarkashi district. The disaster buried parts of Dharali village, causing significant casualties and widespread destruction. Studies highlighted the role of unstable glacial deposits, extreme rainfall, and unplanned development.
Bilaspur (2025)	Triggered by sudden, unseasonal heavy rainfall and localized thunderstorms, a major landslide struck Bilaspur city in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh.

What are the causes of landslides in India?

What are the Impacts of Landslides in India?

1. Loss of Lives: The most traumatizing impact of a landslide is the loss of precious human and animal lives for e.g. in the Wayanad landslide, 298 people died.
2. Economic Losses: Landslide leads to enhanced economic losses as, significant amount is spent on reconstructing the lost infrastructure, rehabilitating the masses, and providing relief support to the impacted people.
3. Infrastructural Damage and restricted Movement: The mud, rocks, and debris moving down the slope result in infrastructural damage to houses, buildings, roads and create a barrier on critical transportation routes. This restricts the movement of goods and people.
4. Damage to Hydropower Projects: The immense silt and debris washed down by landslides accumulate in reservoirs, drastically reducing the operational lifespan and power-generation capacity of critical multi-purpose river and hydroelectric projects.
5. Displacement and Migration: Landslides force communities to evacuate and migrate. This leads to social disruption and psychological stress among affected populations.
6. Devastation of the Tourism Sector: In tourist-dependent states like Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, recurrent landslides result in huge losses of tourism-related revenue. Travel cancellations hit local businesses, hotels, and transport operators deeply.
7. Loss of Fertile Topsoil: Hill communities rely heavily on terraced farming and orchards. Debris flows smother agricultural lands with rocks and sand, completely stripping the fertile topsoil and crippling long-term agricultural productivity.

What initiatives have been taken by the Government to mitigate the risks due to landslides?

What are the challenges in implementation of measures proposed for landslide Mitigation?

1. Non implementation of Gadgil and Kasturirangan committee reports: The Gadgil committee report proposed to regulate developmental activities in the entire 1,60,000 sq km stretch of the Western Ghats. K Kasturirangan report recommended demarcation of 37% of the Western Ghats as an ecologically sensitive area (ESA) and complete ban on mining and quarrying in these protected zones. These reports have not been implemented with resistance by all states and parties across the political spectrum in the biodiverse region.
2. Scale Incompatibility: Most existing Landslide Hazard Zonation (LHZ) maps created by agencies like the GSI are at a macro-scale (1:50,000). While useful for national planning, they are completely inadequate for village or town-level town planning (1:1,000 or 1:5,000).
3. Lack of landslide mitigation plan: Many States vulnerable to landslides including Kerala lack landslide mitigation plan. These maps and plans help to explain the route a landslide can take once it has been triggered.
4. Insufficient Monitoring Systems: Many regions lack effective monitoring and early warning systems, which are crucial for timely evacuation and disaster preparedness. The absence of real-time data lead to increased casualties and damage during landslide events.
5. Policy and Regulatory Gaps: Bureaucratic and regulatory bodies often struggle to enforce strict land-use zoning restrictions. Despite high-risk classifications, unauthorized constructions of multi-story hotels, commercial resorts, and heavy infrastructure projects continue to creep up on unstable slopes.
6. Low Community Awareness and Participation: Low levels of public awareness regarding landslide risks and preparedness measures impede community involvement in disaster management. For early warnings to be effective, the public must understand them and know how to respond. Without robust community engagement, even the best forecasts are rendered useless.
7. Resistance to Evacuation: Offering generic financial compensation fails to replace lost agricultural livelihoods. Families frequently refuse to relocate to safe, flat terrains offered by the state because those locations lack immediate economic opportunities or connection to their community roots.

What Should be the Way Forward?

1. Micro-Zonation: The Geological Survey of India (GSI) and state authorities must prioritize high-resolution, site-specific mapping (1:1,000 to 1:5,000 scale) for all highly vulnerable hill towns and municipal areas.
2. Drawing up of Route Maps: Route maps help in marking out areas which should be out of bounds for settlements or any activities. These maps also map out the routes that landslides are likely to take after they have been triggered. The route maps need to be drawn at the earliest to complement the susceptibility maps.
3. Proper Environment Impact Assessment (EIA): Proper implementation of EIA norms must be carried out before initiating mining or dam construction, in the ecologically fragile mountainous regions.
4. Demarcation of ecologically sensitive areas in Western Ghats: The panel headed by Sanjay Kumar must finalise the draft notification on ecologically sensitive areas for the western Ghats. This will help in reducing engineering projects in ecologically sensitive areas.
5. Mandatory Carrying Capacity Audits: Scientific assessments of a hill station’s carrying capacity (maximum population, vehicles, and structures it can support) must guide all future tourism and urban development plans.
6. Prioritize Nature-Based Solutions: While concrete retaining walls are necessary, they are expensive and can fail. India should heavily integrate Ecosystem-based Disaster Risk Reduction (Eco-DRR):
   • Stabilize loose topsoil using geo-textiles (coir/jute mats) combined with the plantation of deep-rooted, soil-binding native trees and grasses (like Vetiver grass).
   • Prioritize the regular clearing, maintenance, and construction of dedicated surface and sub-surface drainage networks. Controlling the flow of water across a slope is often the single most effective way to prevent a landslide.
7. Community-Led Conservation: Train local communities to monitor their slopes, identify early warning signs (like new cracks in walls or ground subsidence), and maintain local drainage networks, turning them into active guardians of their ecosystem.
8. Leverage AI and New Models: Invest in AI, Machine Learning, and Deep Learning to develop more reliable, field-validated multi-hazard models. For e.g. IIT Roorkee is developing models to forecast fast-moving debris flows, a particularly deadly type of landslide.