Wayanad landslides call for community-based early warning systems, says Japanese disaster management expert

In the wake of the devastating landslides that ravaged Wayanad last year, disaster management expert Prof. Rajib Shaw of Keio University, Japan, has called for a fundamental shift in India’s disaster preparedness strategy — urging that early warning systems be embedded directly within communities, and schools be transformed into localised early warning nodes.

Prof. Shaw led a team of experts from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, the Indian Institute of Management-Kozhikode, the National Institute of Technology-Calicut, and Keio University, Japan, in a study based on extensive on-the-ground investigations into the Wayanad landslides. The comprehensive report, titled ‘Wayanad Landslides 2024: Early Warning System — Changing the Last Mile to the First Mile,’ was released in Kozhikode on Wednesday (August 6, 2025).