Why in News?

• Recently, A severe landslide has completely blocked the road to Dharchula in Pithoragarh district of Uttarakhand.
• Due to heavy rain, six highways and 96 roads are closed in Uttarakhand.
• Landslides have blocked 47 rural roads.

Key Points:-

=> Heavy rainfall causes landslides and accidents, posing a significant challenge for Uttarakhand every monsoon.

=> In 2023, nearly 100 people died and many went missing from June to September.

=> The CM Pushkar Dhami called for a safety audit of all transformers during the monsoon and urged for rapid development of industrial institutions in the state to boost power generation.

Landslide:-

=> A landslide is defined as the movement of a mass of rock, debris, or earth down a slope.

=> They are a type of mass wasting, which denotes any downward movement of soil and rock under the direct influence of gravity.

=> The term landslide encompasses five modes of slope movement: falls, topples, slides, spreads, and flows.

Causes:-

=> Slope movement occurs when forces acting downward (mainly due to gravity) exceed the strength of the earth materials that compose the slope.

=> Landslides are caused due to three major factors: geology, morphology, and human activity.

=> Geology refers to characteristics of the material.

=> The earth or rock might be weak or fractured, or different layers may have different strengths and stiffness.

=> Morphology refers to the structure of the land.

=> For example, slopes that lose their vegetation to fire or drought are more vulnerable to landslides.

=> Vegetation holds soil in place, and without the root systems of trees, bushes, and other plants, the land is more likely to slide away.

=> Human activity which includes agriculture and construction increases the risk of a landslide.

Landslide-Prone Areas:

• The entire Himalayan tract, hills/mountains in sub-Himalayan terrains of North-east India, Western Ghats, the Nilgiris in Tamil Nadu Konkan areas are landslide-prone.