Paras Nath Rai IPS (Retd.) is a Member of the Bihar State Disaster Management Authority, Bihar.

The article explains the need to mainstream DRR in the day-to-day development practices, rather than having a response-based approach to disasters.

Perhaps no other climate-related phenomenon in the world has been as romanticised in folklore and high literature as the Southwest Monsoon – popularly referred to as the Indian Monsoon. After the sweltering summer across the Indian subcontinent, and when the Indian monsoon hits the shores of Kerala in early June, it brings a sense of relief and joy. Thereafter, the progress of the monsoon is followed closely for weeks and months by the common man, farmers, traders, and even policymakers. With a large proportion of the Indian population dependent on agriculture, it is no surprise that the country eagerly looks forward to monsoons. However, the implications of the monsoon’s performance are not limited to agriculture. They ripple across the entire economy. The country’s economic growth or its downturn is often linked to the timing and the quantum of rain each year.

Increasingly, however, this happy tide is often mixed with grief due to frequent disasters witnessed during the monsoon. The purpose of this paper is to talk about the many negative impacts that occur in both a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ monsoon year. All of these impacts can be significantly reduced with some forethought, systematic approach and planning.

The most common and visible impact in a good monsoon year is in terms of large scale riverine floods. Floods cause damage to property, crops and livestock resulting in immense misery to large sections of the population in several States. Much has been said and written about riverine floods in India. Flood commissions for the country as a whole as well as those focused on specific river basins have studied the problem of floods in great depth and recommended both structural measures (e.g. embankments and dams) and non-structural measures (e.g. land use planning, local level flood preparedness) to alleviate the impacts of floods. Many of these measures have been implemented across the country. This article goes beyond riverine floods to look at other disasters that accompany monsoons. These disasters are less visible perhaps because the impacts are diffused and are stretched across several weeks during or just after the monsoons. The following paragraphs discuss the problem of five such disasters: urban floods, lightning strikes, drowning, snakebites, infectious diseases (water-borne and vector-borne).

1. Urban Floods: In the recent past, the intensity of extreme precipitation events has become a norm rather than an exception. Smaller cities and many large cities like Hyderabad, Mumbai, Chandigarh, Patna, Gurgaon and Bengaluru have been brought to their knees. Mumbai 2005, Chennai, 2015, Hyderabad in 2020, etc., were watershed in this aspect. These floods resulted in the loss of life and property and disrupted normal life for several days for a large population trapped in water-logged areas. Response agencies had great difficulty in rescue and relief operations.

1.1: Look at what happened in Hyderabad and the surrounding areas on October 13and 14, 2020. The city recorded the highest-ever rainfall in October since 1891 – 32 cm in 24 hours. Videos circulating showed as if a river was flowing through the city. The extreme rainfall killed more than 60 people.

1.2: Patna experienced one of the worst urban floods in 2019. It did not cause any death worth mentioning but brought much misery to the residents. Commercial/clinical establishments suffered heavily as insurance does not cover floods in cities. There was a tremendous loss of livelihood for thousands, if not lakhs.

1.3: Outside our country, the city of New York faced an extreme weather emergency for the first time in September 2021, when unprecedented rains caused a large number of deaths. The then New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio described the flooding as a “historic weather event”. The city experienced rainfall in a day which was many times more than the average rainfall. It was up to 3 to 4 inches per hour, due to cyclone Ida, whereas, New York City’s sewer system was only designed to handle 1.75 inches of rain in an hour. Very heavy rain in August had left waterways already near capacity. For example, New York City received over 10 inches of rain in August, its fourth-highest amount on record during the month.

1.4: On July 12, 2021, nearly 76mm of rain fell in 90 minutes in parts of London (The Guardian). Europe, too, had its share of extreme weather when as recently as October13-14, 2020, unrelenting rainfall hit levels not seen since 1958 in northern Italy’s Piedmont region where 630 millimetres of rain fell in 24 hours. (Source – https://indianexpress.com/article/world/one-killed-25-missing-in-severe-floods-in-italy-and-france-6688055/). On the other side of the border, in Nice, France, almost a year’s average rainfall fell in less than 12 hours. (Source – https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/03/floods-france-italy-record-rain)

The problem of urban flooding has assumed alarming proportions all over the world. The primary reasons are the absence or inadequate systems for drainage of water, indiscriminate disappearance of water bodies, insensitive urban planning and, of course, extreme weather. We have to look at climate and water sensitive urban planning.

2. Lightning Strikes: As per National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB), over 2000 are killed by lightning every year since 2005. 2300 died in 2018. Bihar lost over 400 lives in 2020 alone.

Lightning is a major natural disaster in India where most of the deaths occur in rural areas, with low levels of awareness and absence of lightning protection. It comes with the onset of monsoons when farmers and their workers rush to the fields as rains arrive. Lightning does occur in the US too, but the average number of deaths per year is just 49. (Source – https://www.weather.gov/safety/lightning-victims). Even though lightning is the biggest contributor to accidental deaths due to natural causes, it remains among the least studied atmospheric phenomena in the country. Occurrences of lightning are not tracked in India, and there is simply not enough data for scientists to work with. Often, safety measures and precautions against lightning strikes do not receive as much publicity as other natural disasters such as earthquakes and floods. Its relationship with monsoons is exhibited by what happened in Bihar this year. Close to 450 lives were lost. June 25, 2020, was an extremely sad day as no less than 100 people falling prey to this natural phenomenon. The week – June 24 to July 4 – saw a maximum number of deaths. There is a clear connection between weather conditions and lightning deaths. Monsoon rains that have been both deficient and delayed in most of the recent years have been rather bountiful this year as Bihar received 66% excess rains from June 1 to July 2 and 77% excess in the week of June 24 to July 1. East Uttar Pradesh received 72% excess rains in the same period with 79% excess only from June 24 to July 1 week. Therefore, when timely monsoons arrived this year, farmers moved to their fields quickly to take advantage of the rain but fell prey to lightning strikes. (Source – Bihar Monsoon 2020: Lightning death – an analysis, Bihar State Disaster Management Authority).

3. Drowning: Thousands die from drowning during the monsoon months. July, August and September are the worst. Unfortunately, a majority of them are young children who drowned in process of enjoying the rainy season, or those performing daily chores such as bathing, washing clothes, etc. Drowning is the third leading cause of death worldwide for children aged 5-14 years. It caused 30,187 deaths in India in 2018 as per NCRB. (Source – https://ncrb.gov.in/sites/default/files/ADSI-2018) 2020 has been particularly bad as children remained at home due to COVID-19. The situation could be worse as many of the cases are not reported because not every State has declared it a local disaster, providing for ex-gratia payment for deaths. The States most affected are Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

The primary reasons for such a large number of deaths are:

1.  Absence of basic safety measures

2. Lack of swimming and rescue skills

There is serious deficit of awareness among villagers regarding basic preventive action/precautions against drowning i.e., not going to dangerous water bodies. Such places are neither identified nor earmarked. Therefore, the foremost prevention is creating awareness among villagers not to venture out in water bodies during the monsoon and especially not allowing children to venture out alone. Traditionally, rivers and ponds were training grounds for the villagers for swimming, bathing and washing clothes. However, with disappearing village ponds and with most households having a separate bathing area, the most vulnerable – the children – do not know swimming.

4. Snakebites: Snakebite, also frequently witnessed during the rainy season, is a dreadful disaster even though its seriousness is not appreciated. Again, as per the NCRB, around 9000 deaths occurred in 2018. (Source – https://ncrb.gov.in/sites/default/files/ADSI-2018) Unfortunately, such deaths are not documented as they are taken as normal events. States like Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha accounted for 70% of deaths during the period 2001-14. The number could be much higher as not all deaths are reported to police or government agencies for various reasons, including non-provision of ex-gratia payment. Even though most snakes in India are non-poisonous, we witness an unusually large number of deaths. Water-logging during monsoons disturb the habitation of the snakes, forcing them to seek shelter in homes, etc.

The main reason for many deaths is dependence on traditional treatment in villages than on allopathic medicines. Governments are, therefore, focused on educating the people to seek immediate medical assistance as against resorting to local methods of treatment. This is a big challenge for community leaders, including the public representatives, teachers, Self  Help workers and semi-government functionaries working at the village level, Asha workers, Anganbari Sevika, Kisan Mitra, etc.

5. Infectious Diseases: It is a well-known fact that doctors and hospitals get extra busy during monsoons due to the onslaught of several diseases such as dengue, chikungunya, malaria, etc. Increased incidence of infectious diseases is observed from the graphics below.

Dengue is one of the most fatal of these diseases. The problem of contaminated drinking water causing many problems is directly linked to monsoons.

The Way Forward

What should worry us is that models have predicted that this is likely to get worse as temperatures rise. Climate change has added to the caprices of the monsoon by shifting the seasons as well as providing excess or deficient monsoon rains. As it is, India has become hotter since the middle of the 20th century with more droughts, lightning, floods, and stronger cyclones. This has made monsoons and related disasters the top priority of disaster management policymakers and managers in the country. It has affected hitherto unknown areas.

Therefore, in the absence of risk-informed mitigation and adaptation measures, climate change is likely to pose profound challenges to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the UN Member States in 2015.

As most natural disasters happen in villages and large spaces and times, we do not appreciate their enormity. Our response, therefore, is mostly reactive while we need to prioritise and promote prevention and mitigation activities. Nations and communities need to do much more than what is being done currently. Some key interventions could be engaging the community, adoption of technology, and mainstreaming disaster reduction, which is still a non-issue in all activities. Bihar’s climate change adaptation programme – Jal Jeevan Hariyali – could be a game-changer. Its main pillars are – increasing green cover, rejuvenation of water bodies and, management of groundwater.

References:

1. https://ncrb.gov.in/sites/default/files/ADSI-2018-FULL-REPORT-2018.pdf)
2. https://ncrb.gov.in/sites/default/files/ADSI-2018-FULL-REPORT-2018.pdf)
3. Bihar Monsoon 2020 : Lightning Death – An Analysis. Bihar State Disaster Management Authority
4. https://www.weather.gov/safety/lightning-victims)
5. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-53186072
6. https://indianexpress.com/article/world/one-killed-25-missing-in-severe-floods-in-italy-and-france-6688055/
7. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/03/floods-france-italy-record-rain