The fragile landscape of hilly regions of India is susceptible to several disasters like earthquakes, landslides, snow avalanche and flash floods. Landslide disaster is one of the major recurrent concerns in Himalayan terrain. The highly sensitive hilly regions have also been subjected to enormous amount of pressure, primarily due to the escalating population thereby leading to overexploitation of natural resources. Thus, the amalgamation of ecological disruption either due to natural or anthropogenic activities is making the hill slopes fragile and thus the infrastructures unsafe. Such disasters pose risk to lives and all sorts of vital infrastructures such as human settlements, roads, rails, tunnels, hydro-power projects etc. The most recent example is the Joshimath landslide-subsidence incident which aggravated in the month of January 2023 affecting thousands of human settlements and other infrastructural facilities.

Researchers and scientists working in this domain have conducted several studies and devised numerous technological interventions to reduce the impact of such hazard and make it safe for the community. Nevertheless, unplanned & uncontrolled construction activities, overseeing of building bylaws, using inappropriate building materials, poor workmanship, constructing buildings in the vulnerable zones and unawareness of the local community are some of the most common challenges in making the infrastructures safe and sustainable with reference to landslide disaster. Since building represents safety and security of the residents along with their emotional attachment after investing all their hard-earned money, it acts as the backbone of human-coping capacity. But when the buildings are vulnerable to disasters like landslides, it needs to be addressed on priority basis, in order to avert adverse situations. All the existing and upcoming infrastructures in the hilly terrain need proper attention and scientific efforts towards landslide risk reduction with advanced technological interventions.

The present paper on landslide disaster risk reduction stresses upon some of the pertinent developments and issues on vulnerability-risk assessment, debris flow hazard assessment and fore warning system for better preparedness. This will help the society in reducing landslide risk with a vision of sustainable infrastructural development in difficult terrains.