NEW DELHI: India is developing a warning system for landslides that would alarm in time and would save various lives and livelihoods from unforeseeable damage due to landslides. The warning system, however, is under a trial period, the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MES) informed the Parliament.
The system, named Landslide Early Warning System (LEWS) is under testing period by the Geological Survey of India in two districts of Darjeeling in West Bengal and Nilgiris in Tamil Nadu and this is likely to be operational by 2025, as per the information from MES. The LEWS is being developed by the Geological Survey of India with its British counterpart under the National Environmental Research Council’s LANDSLIP project, which was developed last year.
The system is being developed, in light of increasing landslides in the country, as a result of excessive rainfall during monsoon season in Kerala, Uttarakhand, and Maharashtra. “The evaluation of the model will be done during the next few monsoon years and the regional LEWS will be made operational in a phased manner in all landslide-prone states,” the MES told the Parliament.