Climate change fuelled deadly India landslides, say scientists

BENGALURU, India: Climate change played a key factor in torrential rains in India that triggered catastrophic landslides killing at least 200 people last month, a group of scientists said on Wednesday.

Monsoon rains battered the southern coastal state of Kerala and triggered landslides on July 30, burying homes and residents in Wayanad district under tonnes of rock and soil.

World Weather Attribution, a network of scientists who have pioneered peer-reviewed methods for assessing the possible role of climate change in specific extreme events, said the link between the intense rainfall and a warming planet was clear.

“The landslides... were triggered by a burst of rainfall that was made about 10 percent heavier by human-caused climate change,” the WWA analysis by 24 scientists said, noting more than 140mm of rain fell in a single day.

“Before climate change, similar downpours in Kerala were incredibly rare,” it said.

The scientists say higher temperatures due to fossil fuel emissions mean the atmosphere can hold more moisture, resulting in heavier rainfall.

It also said there had been a staggering 62 percent decrease in forest cover in the Wayanad region since 1950, “reducing slope stability” and increasing the landslide risk.

“The Wayanad landslides is another catastrophic example of climate change playing out in real time,” said study member Mariam Zachariah, from Imperial College London.