MADIKERI: Amidst all the talks over indiscriminate exploitation of nature causing Kodagu disaster, an exploration geologist who has studied in New Zealand and is working in Australia ruled out the claims of ecologists about Kodagu bearing the brunt of a calamity due to manmade causes.
“Landslides in Kodagu are due to unprecedented rain in Pushpagiri Range and nearby region. What has happened to Kodagu is a natural calamity and not a manmade disaster,” said exploration geologist Iychettira G Machaiah, adding: “It is bizarre how some politicians and overnight ecological experts blame the same old timber mafia, sand mafia, forest encroachment, planters mafia as the cause for this disaster.” However, he says that the floods in the Harangi belt might be an induced disaster due to conversion of wet land and construction of layouts on the river bank and adds, “These organised layouts that have come up in recent years on wetlands are in serious violations of law.”
Nevertheless, the landslides in North Kodagu, he says, might happen once in 200 years and it is just a natural calamity. “Due to excess rainfall, the clay soil and laterite stone under the earth create a cave that starts to store water. And excess, unprecedented rainfall will result in their collapse, accompanied with a sound of breaking of earth’s plates. Western Ghats has a history of over 10 crore years and these disasters are natural to occur once in an occasion,” he stated.
He rubbishes statements of ecologists about deforestation causing such acts of nature and clarifies, “These landslides happen from the earth’s core and they will uproot the strongest trees. Mountains too could collapse during such a calamity. It is a nature’s freak event.”