Deaths from landslides should prick our conscience

 

 

Less than two weeks ago, as coronavirus was keeping people in their homes, torrential rainfalls unleashed a landslide that literally uprooted people from their homes in Elgeyo Marakwet. At least a dozen people died as hundreds were left homeless.

A landslide is a terrible event. It often occurs when torrential rainfall destabilises the soil. When this happens, all hell breaks loose as soil together with rocks, boulders and other material hurtle downward sweeping away people, houses and everything else in their trail. This is exactly what happened recently at Chesogon, a growing town that sits on the border of Elgeyo Marakwet and West Pokot. Not even the local police station was left standing after the landslide’s rampage.

Tragically, this loss of life and property was avoidable, especially considering the fact that since 1960, Kenya has experienced at least 120 landslides. We should be much more prepared for them by now! Indeed, we owe the bereaved and affected families much more than the Sh50,000 that they have been promised by the government. They, too, have a right to life and cannot continue to be exposed to death whenever rains pound their land and trigger landslides.

Just a few months ago on November 23, 2019, landslides hit West Pokot County and killed more than 60 people. Among them were 19 children, including seven from the same family who were buried alive in their home as they slept. In the aftermath of this tragic landslide, grim faced rescue workers had to pull bodies out of mountains of mud and rubble.

Speaking at the scene of the disaster, the usually jolly West Pokot Governor John Lonyangapuo noted that this was the worst disaster in his county. Seven years earlier, in December 2012, West Pokot County had experienced a landslide that left almost 300 families homeless. A year earlier, a landslide in the neighbouring Elgeyo Marakwet killed 15 people. In the opposite side of the country, Murang'a has also seen its fair share of landslides. One such landslide in 2016 killed two people while another in 2018 killed five people. Just like West Pokot, parts of Murang'a County are quite hilly.

Never recovered

In addition to deaths, landslides also uproot communities from their homes. Many survivors are poor, so the prospect of rebuilding their lives from scratch often seems remote. To add to their woes, many bodies of landslide victims are never recovered, depriving bereaved families of much needed closure.

In the last decade, Kenya has experienced at least 10 times as many landslides as a major infectious disease pandemic. We therefore need to combat these landslides with the same national resolve with which we are combating Covid-19. Barely a year goes by before a landslide strikes in a hilly part of the country. Yet politics and corruption continue to leave communities in hilly regions completely vulnerable to landslides. This is unacceptable and is akin to being a murder accomplice.

The Agriculture Act of 2012 had provided clear guidelines about human activity in hilly regions. The Act forbade cultivation or grazing on land with a slope exceeding 35 degrees. For land whose slope exceeded 12 degrees, cultivation was only allowed if soil conservation measures had been put in place. This Act was, however, repealed and replaced by the Agriculture and Food Authority Act of 2013. However, this new Act was totally and tactfully silent on the issue of cultivation and habitation on hilly land.

Currently, the legislative framework on this subject is deliberately lost. As such, Parliament’s committee on Agriculture needs to work on speedy legislation. That legislation should clearly clarify the respective roles of governments in stabilising our slopes and resettling people who live there. In the past, resettlement funds have been misappropriated through pervasive corruption enabled by short-term political interests. Perpetrators of this misappropriation should be brought to justice. But even as this due process plays out in courts, we need to roll out a well-funded national process of ecosystem-based landslide disaster risk reduction.

This process entails planting appropriate trees and deep-rooted grasses in select slopes. Trees stabilise slopes by inhibiting soil movements. They also prevent undue water infiltration into the soil by absorbing some of it. This should be implemented as part of a concerted and consistent national strategy to resettle people who live in steep hilly regions and stabilise those slopes. We cannot allow landslides to keep killing our fellow Kenyans. We should think and act green!

- The writer is founder and chairperson, Green Africa Foundation. www.isaackalua.co.ke