Following heavy rain on Tuesday morning, major landslides rocked the mountainous terrain surrounding Meppadi in Kerala's Wayanad district, resulting in at least 106 deaths, 128 injuries, and hundreds more suspected trapped.
A senior climate scientist has warned that the warming of the Arabian Sea is leading to the formation of deep cloud systems, resulting in extremely heavy rainfall across Kerala in a shortened time frame and raising the risk of landslides.
This alarming disclosure follows a series of landslides triggered by heavy rain in the hilly regions of Wayanad district, which have claimed the lives of at least 45 individuals, with many feared trapped under the rubble.
S. Abhilash, the Director of the Advanced Centre for Atmospheric Radar Research at Cochin University of Science and Technology (CUSAT), reported that the states of Kasargod, Kannur, Wayanad, Calicut, and Malappuram have been experiencing substantial rainfall due to the active monsoon offshore trough impacting the entire Konkan region for the past two weeks.
"The soil was already saturated from continuous rainfall, and the formation of a deep mesoscale cloud system off the coast of the Arabian Sea on Monday triggered localised landslides in Wayanad, Calicut, Malappuram, and Kannur," Abhilash stated in an interview with PTI.
Abhilash drew parallels between the current cloud formations and those seen during the catastrophic floods in Kerala in 2019, emphasising that the recent weather patterns could signal a similar risk. Scientists have observed a trend in the development of very deep cloud systems over the southeast Arabian Sea, which occasionally intrude inland, similar to the events of 2019.
"The increasing warmth of the southeast Arabian Sea is destabilising the atmosphere above, contributing to the formation of these deep clouds. This atmospheric instability, linked to climate change, has shifted the rain-bearing belt southward, moving away from its historical zone in the northern Konkan region," explained Abhilash.
As the intensity of rainfall increases, the likelihood of landslides in the high to mid-land slopes of the Western Ghats in eastern Kerala also rises during the monsoon season, according to the findings from their study.
In terms of immediate weather conditions, the IMD reported that several automatic weather stations across the districts of Thrissur, Palakkad, Kozhikode, Wayanad, Kannur, Malappuram, and Ernakulam recorded rainfall measurements ranging from 19 cm to 35 cm.
"Many IMD automatic weather stations in the affected areas documented rainfall exceeding 24 cm within 24 hours, with some farmer-installed stations recording over 30 cm," Abhilash noted.