Let’s Talk Flood

Floods pass through our life like free-flowing water we can’t hold in our hand. 
Why do we become so helpless? Is nature’s fury – flood – unstoppable? Can we not control, channelize flood and learn to manage it better? Undoubtedly, our preparedness to deal with the challenge speaks volumes about ‘unaccomplished’ endeavors, system’s failure and faulty urban planning. Predictably, floods come every year, almost the same time…same places, with the same ‘intensity’, and cause ‘similar’ damages – life, property, infrastructure, crops and health.

Today is no different? The deluge of sorrow persists in different states of India and other countries. States in India are badly affected through flood caused due monsoon’s incessant heavy rainfall and soaring rivers. Millions of people have been displaced across the northern and north-eastern India because of heavy rainfall that has not only destroyed homes but cost the lives of many. Life has been thrown out of gear and every other thing got ‘drowned’ due to massive waterlogging and the city coming to a standstill – water entering homes, affecting road, rail, air traffic, healthcare facilities and blockage of goods and services. People’s plight gets worse due lack of preparedness and non - availability of efficient systems to tackle and manage the situation.

BUILD CLIMATE-RESILIENT NATION, DISASTER-RESILIENT CITIES

Heavy rains battered Bihar and Uttar Pradesh since September. Unprecedented downpour flooded homes, roads and hospitals across Bihar's capital Patna. Patients were forced to sit on beds in flooded hospital rooms. People had to spend days without electricity and water in their homes. Boats had been pressed into service to evacuate people.

The same narrative goes for states like Maharashtra, Assam, Kerala, West Bengal, Uttarakhand, Jammu and Kashmir, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, where thousands of people and lakhs of livestock were killed while lakhs of houses were damaged and people were displaced. Farmers faced the brunt too as crops were destroyed.

Flood fury caused havoc in states in other parts of the countries too. But here, the damage caused is much lesser due to better systems in place like early warning systems, city evacuation and disaster management.

ALSO READ: Floods predicted to uproot 50m people a year as climate heats up.

In India, there are institutional mechanisms and established agencies at the national, state and district level for disaster management due to natural calamities. But they lack early preparedness and coordination.

Floods need attention from the governments and local bodies to improve flood forecasting capability, establish early warning system and enhanced system for weather forecast accuracy. For long term solution, they must develop public-private partnerships for collaborative works, build disaster resilient cities, infrastructure and communities, construct proper drainage facilities in order to minimize water logging and proper embankments on river banks to control floods.

We must take lessons from the present conditions to avoid such nature’s calamity and loss in the future.

(Representational images: source)