The cracks first appeared on Saturday at Kotli Kalaban village in Manjakote tehsil. (Express photo)At least four families have been moved to safer locations, and experts from the Geological Survey of India (GSI) were called in following the emergence of deep, wide cracks that have damaged several buildings and vast portions of agricultural land at a village in Jammu and Kashmir’s Rajouri.The cracks first appeared on Saturday at Kotli Kalaban village in Manjakote tehsil. Initially, the cracks were small, but within 24 hours, they significantly increased in size, village residents said.Rajouri Deputy Commissioner Abhishek Sharma, who visited the area with SSP Gaurav Shikarwar and other senior officers, told The Indian Express that four families have been temporarily moved to safer locations and that the GSI has been asked to send a team.Meanwhile, official sources said the administration has kept a government school building and a local panchayat building ready to move affected people in case the situation worsens.The village has nearly three dozen houses, most of which have not been affected so far, officials said, adding that this was not a case of land subsidence, but of cracks emerging.Locals claimed that at least half a dozen residential structures and some shops had developed cracks, and that two houses and two cattle sheds were extensively damaged. The link road leading to the village and agricultural fields has also developed cracks at several places.A local youth, Abrar Ahmed, whose newly constructed house has developed cracks, said some of the cracks were so wide that two people could easily stand together in them.Story continues below this adALSO READ | Over 2 months after contentious killing of Kashmiri man in ‘encounter’, his body is exhumedThe Border Roads Organisation (BRO), which is carrying out the widening and realignment of National Highway 144A near the village, said the exact cause of the cracks in the village can only be ascertained after geological studies by experts. However, BRO acknowledged that the geological strata of the area are weak. The highway, which is currently about 5 km away from the village, is being realigned and will be brought to within just around 100 metres of the populated area of the village.In September last year, a massive landslide had led to land subsidence in Badhaal-B panchayat of Rajouri district’s Khawas tehsil, damaging at least seven structures, including four houses, and cutting off the vital Kotranka–Khawas road while displacing four families.In the same month, several structures, including three school buildings, a mosque, a graveyard and a village road, were damaged due to the sinking of land in the Kalaban area in Poonch district’s Mendhar tehsil.