Feb 26, Colombo: Sri Lanka Buildings and Research Organization has recommended removing 1,075 families in ninety villages in the Walapone and Hanguranketha Divisional Secretariats immediately due to instability of the earth.

These people live in landslide-prone slope land in the hill country of Nuwara Eliya district. The landslide division of the Sri Lanka Buildings and Research Organization has conducted around 100 research studies on the risk of landslides and made this recommendation.

Some lands selected to resettle the people who were displaced due to previous landslides were also found to be landslide-prone when researched. Tea plantation, potato and vegetable farming have immensely contributed to make the surface soil layer very unstable in the hill country, say the geologists.