Another day. Another landslide. Another set of grieving families.Just a day after landslides disrupted life in the Lonavala-Khandala region, tragedy has struck Wayanad again, leaving at least one person dead and several injured.
As torrential monsoon rains continue to lash the Western Ghats, the immediate explanation is always the same: heavy rainfall.But that is only half the story.Rain may trigger a landslide. It does not create the conditions for one. Those conditions are increasingly of our own making.
For years, the Western Ghats—one of the world’s eight “hottest” biodiversity hotspots and a UNESCO World Heritage landscape—have been treated less as an ecological treasure and more as real estate waiting to be monetised. Forests have been cleared. Hills have been cut open for roads and buildings.
Quarrying has scarred fragile slopes. Resorts have mushroomed in environmentally sensitive zones. Infrastructure has often raced ahead without adequate environmental assessment.The result is a mountain range that is steadily losing its natural resilience.
Forests are far more than collections of trees. Their roots bind the soil, absorb rainwater and slow surface runoff. Remove that protective cover and the same rainfall that once nourished the ecosystem begins to destabilise it. Slopes become weaker. Soil becomes loose. Rivers carry more sediment.
Landslides become more frequent and more destructive.Climate change is making the problem worse. Scientific studies show that extreme rainfall events over parts of India are becoming more intense and less predictable.
The Western Ghats are therefore facing a dangerous combination: more powerful bursts of rain falling on landscapes that have been systematically weakened by human activity.That is a recipe for disaster.What is most disturbing is that none of this comes as a surprise.
Successive expert panels, including those led by Madhav Gadgil and K. Kasturirangan, warned years ago that unchecked development in ecologically sensitive areas would carry enormous costs. Their recommendations sparked political controversy, resistance from vested interests and fears among local communities.
But while governments debated and delayed, nature quietly continued keeping score.Today, that bill is arriving with interest.Every landslide follows a familiar cycle. There is shock, rescue operations, compensation announcements, political blame games and promises of fresh studies. Then, as the rains recede, attention shifts elsewhere. Construction resumes.
Hills are cut again. Forests shrink a little more. Until the next tragedy.This cycle has become as predictable as the monsoon itself.The uncomfortable truth is that economic development and environmental protection are too often presented as opposing choices. They are not.
A collapsed hillside, destroyed roads, damaged homes, disrupted tourism, lost agricultural land and lives cut short impose economic costs that far exceed the profits from poorly planned development.Ignoring ecology is not pro-growth. It is economically reckless.India does not need to stop building roads, homes or tourism infrastructure in the Western Ghats.
It needs to build far more intelligently. That means enforcing scientific land-use planning, strictly regulating quarrying, protecting forest cover, limiting construction in high-risk zones, investing in slope stabilisation and early-warning systems, and ensuring environmental impact assessments are more than bureaucratic paperwork.
Most importantly, policymakers must stop viewing environmental regulations as obstacles to development. They are safeguards against disasters that ultimately destroy both lives and livelihoods.Every major landslide is often described as a “natural disaster.” That phrase has become dangerously misleading.Rain is natural.The vulnerability we have created is not.
The Western Ghats are sending India increasingly urgent warnings. Each landslide is another reminder that ecosystems have limits, and those limits cannot be negotiated through political speeches or commercial interests.The question is no longer whether nature is warning us.
The question is whether we will act before the next hillside gives way.