People in landslide-prone areas to be trained in disaster management

Last year, in two separate incidents of landslides at Vikhroli and Chembur, 29 people lost their lives and several others were injured. This year, the corporation said that 72 locations fall under a highly vulnerable category.

Director of BMC’s Disaster Management Cell Mahesh Narevekar said that considering the challenges in the rescue operation, evacuation and relocation of residents living at landslide-prone locations, the civic body has planned to reach out to such locations and give them training.

“Most of the areas that have been identified as landslide-prone do not have proper access for machinery and rescue teams. For example, Bharat Nagar in Chembur and Ambedkar Nagar in Malad east where many lost lives during the disaster were inaccessible for rescue machinery. This also causes a delay in reaching help from the authorities.

To tackle this problem, the civic body’s disaster management staff will approach the residents and give them training on responding to such events,” said Narvekar, while speaking at the two-day consultative workshop on ‘Flood in Mumbai’ at Sahyadri Guest House in Malabar Hill.

The event was organised by World Resources Institute (WRI) India and BMC as the Mumbai Climate Action Plan has listed landslides as one of the threats due to climate change.

In 2021, the BMC had identified over 290 landslide-prone areas across Mumbai. Narvekar said that the BMC will also take the help of civic societies and local groups for training these vulnerable populations. The initiative is likely to start on May 15.

After the Chembur and Vikhroli incident, the state government formed a committee under a professor from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Mumbai that is preparing a comprehensive plan for handling disasters in landslide-prone areas and checking the feasibility of rehabilitation.

Narvekar during the discussion said that considering the rise in extreme weather events and disasters, the city also needs a backup plan for power generation.

“The issue of power backup hasn’t been talked about much. So, it requires study to create a backup plan,” he said.

He said that the municipal corporation is also updating its mobile application where citizens will soon get alerts on heavy rainfall, floods and temperature rise.