Rain chaos and floods flag a larger, lurking problem

Rain-related flooding has caused extensive damage throughout the country. However, it is about time we stopped accepting this weather-related chaos as part of the season’s rains each year. With more than their quota of rainfall for a month received in just 2-3 days, Mumbai reported 33 deaths in house collapses and mudslides, mostly of vulnerable slums perched precariously on hilly terrain. The National Capital Region, after a long spell of arid weather, saw thunderstorms that brought 70mm of rain in a day. The worst affected was Gurugram. As the monsoon advances, the Northwest region of the country has been lashed with heavy rains, and rivers and canals have burst their banks, destroying crops and communities.

What is new this time is the rain devastation in the relatively stable climate belts of Europe. In Germany’s Western state of Rhineland-Palatinate, more than 188 people were killed, mostly of riverside communities. Cars were seen hanging from trees and what were once neatly laid-out streets turned into a mass of rubble. Communities have been left stunned at the suddenness and scale of the destruction. It appears moving rain systems have got caught in a circular, stationary weather event—a cloudburst that poured billions of litres of water in a few hours over a relatively small geographical area.

In India, much of the flooding is man-made. In the big cities, the heavy concreting does not allow water to run off into natural channels. In newer cities like Gurugram, there is no concept of a storm water drainage system and even a moderately heavy shower creates water logging and miles of traffic chaos. These problems can and should be addressed at the earliest with proper municipal planning. But far more serious is climate change, where global warming has increased temperatures, triggered ice and glacier melts, and raised the levels of the oceans. As a result, various countries are alternatively seeing searing heat in summer and unusually long and stormy monsoon months. These will need serious introspection aimed at reducing deforestation and controlling the release of greenhouse gases related to the burning of fossil fuels.