Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Wednesday refuted Union Home Minister Amit Shah's claim that the state government was warned as early as July 23 regarding a possible natural calamity in Wayanad due to heavy rains.
Vijayan said that the India Meteorological Department (IMD) had only issued an orange alert in the district ahead of the landslides.
However, the district received over 500 millimeters of rainfall, which was extremely higher than what was predicted by the IMD.
"A red alert was issued for the district only after the landslides hit there on Tuesday morning," Vijayan said at a press conference in Thiruvananthapuram.
The CM also said that this was not the time for 'blame game' and that he was not taking Shah's remarks in an adversarial manner.
A red alert indicates heavy to extremely heavy rain of over 20 cm in 24 hours, while an orange alert means very heavy rain (6 cm to 20 cm).
Earlier in the day, Shah, in the Rajya Sabha, claimed that the Kerala government did not heed to the early warning and also did not get alerted even by the arrival of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) battalions in the state.
Shah said an early warning was sent to the state seven days ahead of the July 30 landslide. Another warning was given on July 24 also.
Had the Kerala government got itself alerted and acted as soon as NDRF teams landed there, losses could have been minimised, the home minister claimed.
