Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Wednesday termed as “baseless”, Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s claim that the state government did not heed the Centre’s warning regarding a possible natural calamity in Wayanad due to heavy rains.Vijayan said that the India Meteorological Department (IMD) had only issued an orange alert in the district ahead of the landslides. However, the district received over 572 millimeters of rainfall, which was extremely higher than what was predicted by the IMD.
“In the disaster areas, an orange alert was in place, with the IMD warning that rainfall would be between 115 and 204 mm. However, the actual rainfall was much higher. The area received 200 mm of rain in the first 24 hours and 372 mm in the next 24 hours, totaling 572 mm in 48 hours.
“This far exceeded the initial warning. The area had never been on red alert before the disaster. However, after the incident, a red alert was issued at six o’clock in the morning (of July 30) after the landslides occurred,” Vijayan said at a press conference here.
Prior to that, from July 23 to 28, there was no orange alert in Wayanad and only on July 29 was an orange alert issued in that district, he said.
A red alert indicates heavy to extremely heavy rain of over 20 cm in 24 hours, while an orange alert means very heavy rain (6 cm to 20 cm).
Furthermore, on July 30, the Geological Survey of India, which has established a landslide warning system in Wayanad, issued a green alert for July 30 and 31, indicating a possibility of minor landslides or rock bursts. However, by then, the district had already received very heavy rainfall and landslides had occurred, the CM contended.