Arenjungla Kichu Mokokchung | 2 August
Nagaland is beginning to look beyond the rainfall for answers to the floods and landslides that have disrupted large parts of the State, with senior officials pointing to forest loss, road construction, urbanisation, drainage and changing land use as possible factors. But no comprehensive scientific assessment has yet established what role each may have played.
The State’s Water Resources Department has asked districts to submit assessment reports and says it has initiated an independent investigation, while the Nagaland State Disaster Management Authority (NSDMA) has also indicated that an investigation is being worked on.
Principal Secretary of the Department of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (DEFCC), Y Kikheto Sema said, the scale of the disaster should serve as a warning about how Nagaland is managing its land and natural resources.
“It is a wake-up call for all of us,” Sema told MT on July 30 when asked whether the State was investigating the causes of the floods and landslides.
Sema said environmental damage could not be attributed to one department alone, pointing to deforestation, extraction activities and road construction.
He cited the India State of Forest Report and said Nagaland recorded a decline of about 787 sq km of forest cover between 2013 and 2023, including about 325 sq km between 2019 and 2021.
He also questioned whether adequate geoscientific assessment had gone into road construction in the State stating that some roads used for decades had been carried out largely on engineering inputs without involvement of geoscientists. “Some DPRs were made without geoscientists,” he said.
But whether road construction contributed to any particular landslide, he acknowledged, would require a site-specific technical investigation.
Er Thepfusalie Guozi, Chief Engineer of the Water Resources Department, said the recent disaster should be viewed against broader changes in the environment.
Speaking to MT on July 30, Guozi pointed to climate change, urbanisation, reduced groundwater recharge, riverbank encroachment and development along tributaries as factors that can influence flooding.
As urban surfaces expand, he explained, less rainwater is able to infiltrate the ground. More water instead runs rapidly into drains and waterways, increasing pressure on drainage systems and downstream channels.
Guozi said extreme weather was occurring across the world and cautioned against attributing the disaster entirely to human activity. He estimated that natural factors accounted for a large share of the disaster, while acknowledging that human activity could also contribute.
He said the Water Resources department had instructed districts to submit assessment reports and that it had initiated an independent investigation on its own initiative.
“It is very concerning what is happening,” Guozi said, noting that landslides were occurring even in locations where the soil had previously been considered stable and in places where such failures were not expected.
The NSDMA is also looking into the matter.
Johny Ruangmei, Joint CEO of NSDMA, said on July 30 that the authority was “working on” an investigation when asked whether it planned to examine the causes of the recent floods and landslides.
The NSDMA, when asked about Assam’s assessment of the flooding, referred MT to the Chief Minister’s Office. The CMO could not be reached through the contact numbers listed on the Nagaland government’s official website.
The Department of Geology and Mining could not be reached for comment.
At the district level, the immediate priority remains rehabilitation.
Mokokchung Deputy Commissioner Ajit Kumar Verma said on July 29 that the administration was focused on rehabilitation but he expressed the expectation that experts would examine the cause of the flood in Tuli.
On the NH-02 between Unger and Chuchuyimlang, where a landslide has cut off the road, PWD (NH) Executive Engineer Lima said the road had existed for decades but had only recently been expanded to two lanes.
He said the rock formation at the site was inclined and that a sliding plane could be seen beneath the failed mass. However, he said, for realignment of the highway, experts would need to conduct technical studies and a detailed investigation.
The recent floods have also generated claims about water released from Doyang Dam.
Guozi said Doyang Dam is operated by NEEPCO and not by the Water Resources Department. Guozi said the reservoir has a finite capacity and would require release once it reaches its limit, but said he could not comment on the actual operation of the Doyang project.
NEEPCO has separately denied claims that water released from the Doyang project flows into Assam’s Jorhat or Sivasagar districts. According to a report by NNN, it has stated that the Doyang water joins the Brahmaputra near Numaligarh in Golaghat district and. Ot Jorhat or Sivasagar district. It also claimed that the Wokha and Golaghat district disaster management authorities remain in coordination, sharing real-time data to manage downstream flows.
Till now, Nagaland is yet to find the cause of the flood and the landslides.
The Water Resources Department has begun its investigation and NSDMA says it is working on an assessment. Sema, meanwhile, called for a wider discussion involving government departments, communities, churches and villages, saying environmental protection could not be left to the government alone.
The recent floods and landslides have therefore left Nagaland with a question that remains open: what made the damage worse, and what needs to change before the next extreme rainfall event?