Uttarakhand’s Rudraprayag, Tehri County has highest landslide risk: ISRO

Rudraprayag, Tehri district of Uttarakhand has the highest concentration of landslides in India. (Representative photo)

According to satellite data held by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), Rudraprayag and Tehri Garhwal districts of Uttarakhand have a concentration of landslides and are prone to landslides.

The findings emerged from the latest risk assessment done by scientists at the Hyderabad-based National Remote Sensing Center (NRSC), who released the list as part of the Landslide Atlas of India. The team released a list of 147 most landslide-prone districts in 17 states and two union territories. It includes 13 districts of Uttarakhand that differ from each other in terms of landslide risk.

As PTIWhile Rudraprayag and Tehri districts are ranked first and second in the table, Haridwar and Udham Singh Nagar are ranked 146th and 147th respectively.

Chamoli district, where Joshimath is grappling with land-acquisition crisis, ranks 19th, Uttarkashi 21st, Pauri 23rd, Dehradun 29th, Bageshwar 50th, Champavat 65th, Nainital 68th, Almora 81st and Pithoragarh 81st.

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Further, according to the NRSC, apart from Uttarakhand, among the 10 most landslide-prone districts, four are in flood-prone areas of Kerala, two in Jammu and Kashmir and two in Sikkim. In fact, after the Himalayas, the Western Ghats, which have seen large-scale development in the past few years, have the highest landslide density.

Thrissur (Kerala), Rajouri (Jammu and Kashmir), Palakkad (Kerala), Poonch (Jammu and Kashmir), Malappuram (Kerala), southern and eastern districts of Sikkim and Kozhikode (Kerala) were listed among the 10 worst-hit districts, Uttarakhand Except for two districts.

In Landslide Atlas of India, NRSC said that for the first time, NRSC scientists have conducted a risk assessment to create a “Landslide Atlas of the Country” based on 80,000 landslides recorded between 1998 and 2022 in 147 districts of 17 states and two Union Territories. The atlas uses ISRO’s satellite data to map all seasonal and event-based landslides, such as those caused by the Kedarnath disaster in 2013 and the Sikkim earthquake in 2011.

The new study recorded landslide hot spots between 2000 and 2017, with Mizoram having the most at 12,385, followed by Uttarakhand with 11,219, Jammu and Kashmir with 7,280 and Himachal Pradesh with 1,561. Among the southern states, Kerala recorded the highest number of landslide hot spots (6,039).

Scientists said that India is among the top four countries with the highest landslide risk, with more than 12.6 percent land area at risk, excluding snow-covered areas.