A year after calamity, many Kerala families still in relief camps; heavy rain alerts keep state in high alert

A year after the second consecutive natural calamity in Kerala, 27 odd families were still remaining in relief camps and construction of houses for over hundred families were only in the initial stages.

With above normal rainfall being forecast in Kerala for the coming days, the state is keeping fingers crossed as the state witnessed major calamities during the month of August in the last two years, claiming around 500 live in 2018 and around 130 in 2019, including many bodies that are yet to be even recovered. This time the scenario is more grim owing to the Covid-19 scenario.

At Kavalappara in Malappuram district, about 125 families lost their houses in the landslides on August 8 last year. While 44 houses were fully devastated in the landslide, scores of other families were vacated from the landslide pone area. Of this, around 30 families so far got houses set up with support of voluntary organisations. For 67 families, the government allotted funds for buying land and building houses hardly a week back.

In the case of 27 families of a Scheduled Tribe colony in the locality, suitable land for rehabilitation was yet to the identified and the families are still staying at relief camps over the last one year.

At Puthumala in Wayanad, construction of houses for 56 families began only in June, while 43 families were already provided land and house with support of voluntary organisations.

Revenue department officials maintain that the rehabilitation got delayed mainly due to reluctance shown by the beneficiaries toward land identified by the government earlier.

Dileep, a social worker at Kavalappara, who approached court against the delay in rehabilitation, said that even as the government announced funds for land and houses earlier also, it had not materialised. The present announcement regarding fund allocation for 67 families could be in the wake of court interventions.

Meanwhile, in the view of the experiences during the previous two years around 3,000 families from disaster prone areas were already shifted to safe places. All the local self government institutions have got disaster management plans ready. Over 25,000 vacant homes and buildings were also identified by the district administrations as those in quarantine due to Covid-19 and those in high risk groups need to be kept separately in case of a major calamities. Water level of dams are also constantly reviewed as there were allegation that improper dam water management aggravated the situations in 2018.