VELLORE: The Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) has offered to accommodate the Centre for Advanced Studies in Indian Landslides on its premises here.

The offer was made by VIT Chancellor G. Viswanathan to the president of the Indian Geotechnical Society, Major General Mukherjee, while participating in a round table meeting on Landslide Disasters organised by the Centre for Disaster Mitigation and Management at the VIT campus here on Thursday.

Inaugurating the meeting, Mr. Viswanathan offered the VIT Centre as the parking place for the Centre in view of their enormous impact on life, property and development.

National agenda

The only effective way to speedy implementation of the national agenda on landslides is to create a network of centres, he said.

Maj. Gen. Mukherjee, explaining the importance of the subject, said, "The neglect of this may have grave consequences." The Indian Geotechnical Society, which has a widespread network of centres throughout the country will be glad to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with the VIT on the establishment of the Centre for Advanced Studies in Indian Landslides, he said.

Robin Chowdhury, international expert on landslides and Professor at the Wollongong University in Australia, said landslide disasters were avoidable.

R.K. Bhandari, chairman of the Centre for Disaster Mitigation and Management, emphasised the need to undertake large-scale landslide hazard mapping programmes, without which no reliable vulnerability and risk analyses were possible. Unreliable assessments may prove dangerous, especially in terms of forecasts for early warning.

Earthquakes also trigger landslides and ignoring them will make earthquake risk assessments futile, he said. P. Radhakrishnan,

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