Context: To mitigate the hazards of landslides and provide early warning to the people affected by them, the government of India has set up the National Landslide Forecasting Centre at Kolkata and launched the Bhusanket Web Portal and Bhooskhalan Mobile App.

• The government plans to set up a string of landslide forecasting centres in all the landslide-prone states by 2030.

Inauguration of National Landslide Forecasting Centre, Portal and App

• The National Landslide Forecasting Centre has been set up at the Geological Survey of India (GSI) Dharitri Campus, Salt Lake City, Kolkata, West Bengal.

• The NLFC is a pioneering initiative aimed at landslide hazard mitigation in India and will provide early information to local administration and communities, update landslide inventories, and integrate real-time rainfall and slope instability data for enhanced forecasting accuracy.

• He also launched the Bhusanket Web Portal and Bhooskhalan Mobile App that will facilitate dissemination of relevant information on landslide hazards, initiating short-range and medium-range landslide forecasting.

Function of the centre and Web portal

• The advanced National  Landslide Forecasting Center, equipped with the latest technology, will provide early warning information to the local administration, update landslide inventories, and integrate real-time rainfall and slope instability data for enhanced forecasting accuracy.

• The Web Portal, Bhooskhalan Mobile App, will enable quick dissemination of daily landslide forecasts and allow stakeholders to share and update spatial and temporal information on landslide occurrences.

Landslide and Landslide prone areas in India 

• Landslides are a geological phenomenon that involves the sudden and rapid movement of a mass of rock, soil, or debris down a slope under the influence of gravity.

• A variety of causes act as a trigger for a landslide. Some of the major causes of landslide can be seen under the following two heads:

• Natural Causes: Heavy Rainfall, intense ground shaking due to earthquakes, Volcanic Eruptions and erosions.

• Anthropogenic Causes: Deforestation, Encroachment in Vulnerable Terrains, poorly planned excavation activities, and overgrazing by cattle.

• The most landslide-prone areas in India are the Himalayan regions, followed by the  Northeastern hill ranges, the Western Ghats, the Nilgiris, the Eastern Ghats and the Vindhyans mountain range.

• The landslide in the Northeastern region, especially the Darjeeling district of West Bengal, in Sikkim, Mizoram, Tripura, Meghalaya, Assam, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh, pose chronic problems, causing recurring economic losses worth billions of rupees.

• That is why the first National Landslide Forecasting Center, which will cater to the Northeastern region, has been set up in Kolkata.

Based on the type of movement involved, there are mainly 4 types of landslides

• Falls: They refer to the type of landslide that involves the collapse of material from a cliff or steep slope, which then falls down the slope and collects near the base.

• Topples: Under this type of landslide, the falling mass undergoes forward rotation and movement around an axis or point at or near the base.

• Slides: Under this type of landslide, there is a distinct zone of weakness that separates the moving material from a more stable underlying material.

Impacts of Landslides

• Loss of human and animal lives.

• Damage to infrastructure and properties such as homes, roads, etc.

• They can bury or wash away agricultural land, thus affecting agriculture.

• The aftermath of landslides may mean the displacement of local communities.

• Landslides, often, block transportation routes such as roads. This, then, has its own repercussions.

Initiatives Taken

• The Disaster Management Act, of 2005 provides a comprehensive legal and institutional framework for the management of various disasters including landslides.

• The National Landslide Risk Management Strategy (2019) covers all aspects of landslide disaster risk reduction and management, such as hazard mapping, monitoring, and early warning systems.

• The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) has issued Guidelines on Landslide Hazard Management (2009) that outline the steps that should be taken to reduce the risk of landslides.

• The National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM) has been providing capacity building and other support to various national and state-level disaster management authorities.

• Efforts have been made towards better prediction of weather. E.g. Ensemble Prediction System. This will help predict disasters like landslides.

About the Geological Survey of India 

• The Geological Survey of India (GSI) was set up in 1851 to find coal-bearing areas for the Railways.

• Currently, the main function of the Geological Survey of India is to create and update the national mineral resource assessment and geoscientific information.

• It comes under the Union Ministry of Mines.

• Headquarters: Kolkata 

• Regional Offices of GSI:  Lucknow, Jaipur, Nagpur, Hyderabad, Shillong and Kolkata

• Director General of GSI:  Janardan Prasad