A three-day training programme on ‘Landslide Risk Mitigation and Management in North East India’ began today with the aim of making the public aware about landslide risks and mitigation measures.
The programme is being jointly organised online by the Department of Geology of North-Eastern Hill University (NEHU) and the National Institute of Disaster Management until June 30. A total of 325 participants have registered for the event.
Today’s keynote speech was delivered by government scientist Ashok K Singh, who spoke about the serious impact that landslide hazards have on the socio-economic structure of the region and disruption of services. Furthermore, he described the various activities of the central government with special reference to the National Geospatial Programme (NGP) and stressed on the necessity of an early warning system for landslides.
In the first technical session, NEHU’s Prof Devesh Walia highlighted the various activities associated with landslides, triggering factors, potential landslide indicators and various initiatives to stabilize the landslide in the North East as around 0.49 million sq km of the country is vulnerable to landslide hazards. He put forth the fact that most landslides in the North Eastern states are due to human activities and initiated by rainfall and earthquakes. The people’s participation can reduce the extent of damage if not the impact. If we understand the failure mechanism then we may mitigate and manage the land sliding activity, he said.
Saibal Ghosh of the Geological Survey of India emphasised on the importance of multi-scale landslide hazard analyses to better understand the mechanism of landslides and mitigate the after effects of landslides in urban areas. He described the various projects and work being carried out by GSI in the North East and asked the participants to get the information using the GSI portal, as such information is freely available through the website and can be used by planners and various other agencies.
