Early warning system for landslides deployed at Kurseong: GSI

The Geological Survey of India (GSI) along with the West Bengal government has deployed a people-centric landslide early warning system (L-EWS) for the first time in the country at Kurseong in Darjeeling district, a GSI official said.

The experimental L-EWS, wherein the community plays an important role, was deployed at Giddapahar village in Kurseong on Friday, he said.

"Absolute prediction of the occurrences of landslides, both in space and time, often does not happen because inter-related key elements like risk knowledge, monitoring, analysis, warning generation, dissemination and communication of warning and preparedness for timely response do not work in sync," he said on Monday.

"The difficulties coupled with the variability in the intensity of trigger makes its forecasting difficult for the purpose of alerting community at risk. Therefore, the need of putting community based landslide warning system has been deeply felt," he said.

Elaborating about the system, he said that it was ideal for warning landslides as their spatio-temporal forecasting is extremely difficult particularly from a remote area.

Stating that Giddapahar is one of the most landslide prone areas in Darjeeling district, he said, "the village is located over the crown of an active rock slide which reactivated several times in the two decades. The houses and grounds have developed cracks and show signs of active mass movement."