Though their homes were not damaged in the 2024 Wayanad landslide, Adivasi families had to leave after authorities declared the areas ‘no-go zones’. While one family remains in the forest at Punchirimattam, unwilling to leave its ancestral land, a few others have returned to their forest land at Erattukundu. A view of an Adivasi family’s home at Punchirimattam.
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

Even as the rehabilitation of survivors of the 2024 Wayanad landslide (Mundakkai-Chooralmala landslide) in Keralam is making progress, with 327 families, including 149 last month, having been allotted houses at the township project in Kalpetta, the resettlement and rebuilding of lives remain a distant prospect for 13 Adivasi families displaced in the aftermath of the disaster.

Though their homes were not damaged, the families had to leave as the areas surrounding their settlements fell within designated ‘no-go zones’ (unsuitable for habitation), with one of the settlements also falling in a ‘red zone’. Some now live in rented accommodation with government assistance, cut off from their forest environment and traditional livelihoods. Others have returned to the forest, as construction of the promised houses on alternative land allocated to them at Puthiyavillage in Meppadi under the Forest Rights Act, 2006 is yet to begin.

Published – November 07, 2026 10:18 am IST