Shillong ( Meghalaya), June 28 : A -3 day Training Program on the “Landslide Risk Mitigation and Management in North-East India” is being jointly organized by the Department of Geology, NEHU and National Institute of Disaster Management from 28 th to 30 th June 2021, with the aim to make the people aware about the landslide and various mitigation measures.
A total of 325 participants registered for this programme.
The Inaugural session started with welcome address by Prof. Devesh Walia, HOD, Geology Department, NEHU, followed by address by Dr. Amir Ali Khan, NIDM, New Delhi introducing the theme. He briefly explained the overview of the program. Keynote speech was delivered by Dr. Ashok K. Singh, Scientist ‘E’, NGP-DST, New Delhi.
He discussed that the landslide hazards have very serious impact not only on socio-economic structure of the region, but also in disruption of services bringing misery to human lives. Further, he described the various activities of Government of India with special reference to National Geospatial Program (NGP) and stressed on the necessity of early warning system for landslides.
In the first technical session by Prof. Devesh Walia highlighted the various activities associated with landslides, triggering factors, potential landslide indicators and various initiatives to stabilize the landslide in north-east India as around 0.49 million sq km area of the country is vulnerable to landslide hazard and He presented various photographs of the occurrences of landslides in NE states and explain the landslide type, distribution and failure mechanism and put forth the fact that most of the landslides.
in North eastern States are predominantly due to anthropogenic activities and initiated by rainfall and earthquakes. The people’s participation can reduce the extent of damage if not the impact. If we understand the failure mechanism then we may mitigate and manage the land sliding activity.
Dr. Saibal Ghosh, Director (Geology), Geo Hazards Research and Management Center, Geological Survey of India, Kolkata emphasized on the importance of multi-scale landslide hazard analyses to better understand the mechanism of landslides and mitigate the after effects of landslides in urban areas.
He described the various projects and work being carried out by GSI in north-eastern states and asked the participants to get the information using the GSI portal, as such information is freely available through the website and can be used by planners and various other agencies. He stressed the need to carry out detailed research program by the students and scholars from the NE region.
