374 landslides occurred across Northeast in 2025, claiming 63 lives: NESAC

Staff Reporter

Guwahati: In 2025, a total of 374 landslide incidents occurred in the Northeastern states, with 63 casualties reported. Of the 63 casualties, 30 belonged to Assam.

The North Eastern Space Applications Centre (NESAC), under the North Eastern Regional Node for Disaster Risk Reduction (NER-DRR) programme, recently published the Seasonal Landslide Inventory for the NER-2025 report. NESAC is an autonomous body under Department Of Space, Government of India, located at Umiam, Meghalaya. It needs to be mentioned that the report is not inclusive of all landslide events that have occurred during the year 2025.

According to the Seasonal Landslide Inventory report abstract, "As a part of operational activity under the NER-DRR programme of NESAC, Umiam, a compendium of reported landslide incidents for the year 2025 was compiled from print, online media reports, field surveys and concerned authorities. A total of 374 landslide incidents have been documented for the year 2025 from the different states of the NER, mainly triggered by rainfall. Further, 63 casualties have been reported, out of which 12 are from Arunachal Pradesh, 30 from Assam, 2 from Meghalaya, 6 from Mizoram, 1 from Nagaland and 12 from Sikkim.

"From various locations, collapses of road sections along National/State Highways as well as district roads are reported and are also documented. This report also contains information on 24 hours of total rainfall prior to each event collected from the GPM Mission. Wherever possible, event locations are verified in terms of precise latitude and longitude, either through field/UAV survey, post-dated satellite imagery and/or media photographs. Accordingly, a codification scheme has been assigned. Landslide dimension vis-à-vis spatial resolution of the satellite image, availability of cloud-free images, exposure condition of the landslide with respect to hill slope, and clearance of slide debris, especially along the roadside immediately after an event, are some of the factors that pose limitations for validation of each and every reported event location through (freely available cloud-free optical) satellite data,' the report further stated.

The systematic inventory thus compiled will help in assessing the risk in terms of yearly loss of life and property, disruption of transportation networks, frequency and magnitude of landslide incidents in an area and NER as a whole. It will also help in carrying out studies related to landslides in NER.

The state-wise occurrence of landslides, according to the report, is as follows: Arunachal Pradesh 28, Assam 91, Manipur 18, Meghalaya 138, Mizoram 15, Nagaland 42, Sikkim 25 and Tripura 17.

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