Posers erupting from the landslides
The bad weather may be easing off in the
hill country but this is very small consolation considering the vast
human suffering the natural devastation in the usually "salubrious, cool
climes of Nuwara Eliya" has left behind.
As reported, some 15,000 persons have been rendered homeless in the
Walapane and Hanguranketha areas and the immediate and most daunting
challenge is to house them and ensure their physical and emotional
security.
Hopefully, the public response will be positive and quick to the
Estate Infrastructure and Livestock Development Minister's request that
building material be provided for housing the homeless and the
destitute. Apparently, there are scores of persons out there who do not
have a roof over their heads.
If this situation continues, it could be considered an indictment on
the rest of the body politic. Therefore, the vital needs of the
landslide-affected must be met without further delay. All support
systems must be activated to enable the homeless to secure shelter and
comfort.
We call on the State authorities in particular to spare no pains to
succour the afflicted. In this their hour of need the affected sections
should enjoy the assurance that their appeals for protection and help
are not in vain.
A prominent feature of the recent devastation in the hills was the
frequency of the landslides and their vast scale. In the recent history
of natural calamities in Sri Lanka, these horrors have been among the
worst. They have also tended to concentrate in the Nuwara Eliya
district.
The issue for geologists is to ascertain why this is so. Have man's
destructive acts been on the increase in the area in question? Is man's
exploitation of nature reaching critical proportions in Sri Lanka? These
questions need to be probed thoroughly if we are to escape natural
calamities of the scope and kind which gripped the central hills.
Landslides and mud slides are the result of what has come to be known
as "unplanned development". Human settlements and plantations, for
instance, are established in inappropriate geographical locations and
environmentally-sensitive areas and these are considered prime trigger
factors in landslides and avalanches.
All this is common knowledge now and one would have expected the
necessary safeguards to have been taken against the occurrence of such
"natural" devastation. However, the indications are that the rising cry
against the unconscionable exploitation of nature has fallen on deaf
ears.
Traced to its roots, this crisis has its origins in the abuse and
misuse of power at particularly the local and provincial levels. Humans
cannot establish settlements just anywhere. This is particularly so in
the case of hilly regions.
If small human settlements are being established in environmentally
hazardous locations, it is certainly happening with the connivance and
knowledge of local officials. And if officials are turning a blind eye
on these irregularities it is on account of their receiving
gratifications of some kind or on account of their being prevailed upon
to comply with the irregularities.
Therefore, the problem boils down to just and ethically-faultless
administration. May this line of reasoning open the eyes of the State. |