“Many natural events occurred in Racha at one time, resulting in the land sliding process. But, there is no danger of the calamity occurring again,” said Maia Bitadze, chair of Georgia’s Parliamentary Environment Protection Committee.

Maia Bitadze expressed sympathy to the families of those who died in the Shovi resort landslide. She cited erosion, glacier melting, downpours, and the most recent heavy precipitation as factors triggering the landslide processes.

Bitadze also urged opponents to avoid being malicious and “playing on nerves” by turning “any disaster into a political playfield.” She was addressing Giorgi Vashadze, the head of the Strategy Aghmashenebeli party, who, in her words, advocated for the abolition of the environmental monitoring system. She asserted that in the previous five years, the government began to restore the hydrological and geological monitoring observation network.

“We make every effort to have monitoring equipment. This projection predicts some events, while others, such as earthquakes, are not. There are specific geological maps, and we discussed granting permits yesterday,” she stated.

Maia Bitadze went on to say that the authorization for the construction on the slope where the landslide occurred was based on geological maps, and no forestry cut was reported in the zone.

On August 3, a landslide ravaged the Oni Municipality’s Shovi resort. The death toll has risen to six.