Kochi: Even as people in Kerala are yet to recover from the shock of massive devastations in Wayanad landslides, the Congress has triggered a blame game accusing the center of failing to alert the state in advance.Responding to the charge, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said the centre had alerted the state on July 23, 24, 25 and 26 before the disaster struck Wayanad and slammed the Left government for not removing people from vulnerable places.
Shah said the government spent Rs 2000 crore on upgrading the early warning system since the government came to power in 2014.Shah said the Centre had been alerting all the states across the country about any impending disasters due to natural causes like rai, cyclone, heat wave, tsunami, earthquake much in advance after the country acquired expensive warning system a couple of years back.
He commended a non BJP government of Naveen Patnaik in Odisha and Gujarat governments of acting on the cyclone alerts and moving people to safe zones preventing casualties.Shah was responding to the Congress leader Jebi Mather, A A Rahim (CPM), Raghav Chadha (AAM) who blamed the centre for failing to caution the state in Rajya Sabha.
Interestingly, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan agreed to receiving the warning, but said the warning did not make precise predictions of the amount of rainfall.DMK floor leader Tiruchi Siva blamed the landslides on deforestation and sought urgent steps to stop to it.
Surender Singh Nagar of BJP wondered why Opposition Leader Rahul Gandhi of Congress keeping quiet despite being elected from there.John Brittas (CPM) said as 2,239 out of 3,582 landslides in the cointry occurred in Wayanad, the calamity may be declarred national disaster.Toll in the devastating landslides the state has ever witnessed has claimed 267 even as search for hundreds of missing people is on.
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