MARGAO: As the Disaster Response Force from the Centre and Maharashtra mounted a massive rescue operation at the Pune landslide site, authorities back home in south Goa seem not to have learnt any lessons from the 2005 tragic landslide when the Dicarpale hillock at Davorlim village caved in, burying alive 11 Uttar Pradesh labourers around a decade ago.
While the Pune landslide has brought back sad memories of the tragedy that hit the UP labourers at Dicarpale, what sounds shocking and disturbing is that the South Goa Disaster Management Authority have not even deemed fit to inquire into the correspondence made by the Dicarpale Comunidade in respect of structures that have come up on the hillock post landslide. That the attorney of Dicarpale Comunidade Leon Raicar has drawn attention of the Comunidade and district authorities that one of the structures, a shed, has come up right at the very site of the landslide has failed to spur any action from the concerned authorities.
Thursday saw a group of persons from Dicarpale approaching local Panch member and outgoing Davorlim Sarpanch Herculano Niasso seeking to know whether the Dicarpale landslide hillock has stabilised or is still prone to landslide in the wake of the Pune landslide. “From the Panchayat side, we had written to the authorities on the structure atop the hillock,” remarked the outgoing sarpanch.
While the then district authorities did not deem fit to engage an expert agency to find out the stability of the Dicarpale hillock, sources said both the Administrator of Comunidade and the district Collectorate failed to check the host of structures that have come up on the hillock since 2005.
Raicar had told Herald some time back that the Dicarpale Comunidade had submitted a list of structures dotting on the hillock following a circular issued by the Administrator of Comunidade to compile a report as part of monsoon preparedness. He was categorical in saying that there’s been no action forthcoming from the authorities despite the list of structures submitted to the Comunidade Administrator.
Incidentally, Raicar has mentioned in one of his letters to the Administrator of Comunidade that a temporary shed has come up during election time on the very same point of the landslide zone.
Chairman of South Goa district Disaster Management Authority Venancio Furtado was not available for comment. But, the last time Herald had contacted him to shed light on the stability of the Dicarpale hillock and the structures dotting there, he had promised to inquire into the matter.
