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After the Uttarakhand disaster of 2013, there was not a single year in which India did not experience at least one major event of heavy rainfall, one that led to widespread flooding, devastation and, in most cases, loss of life. Such events occurred in Kashmir, Chennai, Bengaluru, Pune, Mumbai, Gurgaon, Kerala, Assam, Bihar and many other places.
This is exactly the kind of event scientists warned several years ago: that precipitation would become more intense and concentrated—very heavy rain over short periods of time—and that the frequency of such events would increase.
The current bout of heavy rainfall over northern India is simply part of that trend, and it comes as no surprise, even if it is the heaviest rainfall in the last 20 or 25 years in some places. Many extreme weather events occur around the world with alarming regularity.
Extreme events themselves may be inevitable, but the disasters that result from them are not necessarily so. In most cases, there is an aggravating factor, including official incompetence, negligence, cruelty, and oftentimes greed.
Bengaluru gets flooded every year not because of an unusual amount of rain but mainly because the natural channels of water flow below the surface are blocked by irregular construction.
Egg whites in Mandi, Himachal Pradesh. Ani
Srinagar faced unprecedented floods in 2014 not only because of extremely heavy rains – in just four days in September of that year, it received more than five times the normal rainfall for the entire month – but also because all the low-lying areas along the Jhelum River pass are populated. .
Kerala, no stranger to heavy rains, witnessed widespread devastation in 2018, mainly due to the large number of settlements and tourist infrastructure that appeared in the floodplains of the rivers. Mumbai is flooded at every opportunity due to broken or clogged drainage.
The Uttarakhand disaster itself, as indicated in later investigation reports, was exacerbated by the disorganized construction and poorly planned infrastructure works.
Each of these events in the past 10 years has served as a warning, and each of them has provided a number of lessons to be learned. Unfortunately, it appears that very few, if any, lessons have been learned. India is still in the process of building its infrastructure – roads, ports, railways, urban spaces, housing, hospitals and power stations. It has the opportunity to design it in such a way as to make it resilient to the expected worst impacts of climate change over the next four to five decades.
It is useless to blame the rain for the widespread waterlogging that has been seen in Delhi, Gurgaon and other places in the past few days. Noida, with the same amount of rain, was sporting a completely different look.
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