‘Kerala floods an example of human disregard for nature and climate change’

Vibha Sharma
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, August 18

Amid the demands to declare Kerala floods a national calamity, environmentalists say the situation in the state, or for that matter also hills of north India, is yet another example of human disregard for nature and climate change, which can no longer be called impending.

“If you see across the world, extreme weather events have already increased. The devastating floods in a country like Japan is a proof,” says Chandra Bhushan, Deputy Director General of the Centre For Science and Environment.

What is more surprising, apart from total unprepared ness and lack of planning of the authorities concerned in dealing with such situations, is that the Central Water Commission—the nodal agency for flood forecasting in India—not having even a single “site” in Kerala.

“Flood forecasting in the country is done by CWC. It has 226 sites for flood forecasting across the country, Kerala is not one of them,” said Himanshu Thakkar of the South Asia Network on Dams, River and People.

This apart, Kerala floods are also an example of mismanagement of reservoirs like Bihar floods were, last year.

“On May 31 when the monsoon season just started, Iddukki reservoir was around 25 per cent full. This should have sent the alarm bells ringing for those managing the dam,” says Thakkar

“A dam should not be full beyond a certain level ahead of the monsoon, otherwise you are inviting disaster. Just halfway through the season on July 31, Idduki was almost full, which had never happened since it was commissioned in 1975. It was a warning which was ignored by dam operators.

“On July 31, they had planned to release water and even issued alerts downstream. They should have, but stopped because the intensity of monsoon decreased. On August 8, they had no option but to release the water. An added factor was that of its six 130 MW power plants two were not working, meaning only one third of water capacity was being used,” explains Thakkar.

Mahesh Palawat of private forecaster Skymet, who is predicting a respite for Kerala for the next one week at least, says haphazard development around water bodies and hills and reduced green cover added to the intensity of the events caused by continuous weather systems, a signal of climate change. 

Side effects of climate change and global warming can no longer be ignored, says Chandrabhushan.

“Kerala floods are unprecedented. The 100-year rainfall data shows the state did receive unusually heavy rainfall, which people are now linking it to climate change. But if you see around the world the extreme weather events have increased, whether it is the heat wave in Europe, forest fires in California or the extreme rainfall in Japan.

“Climate change impacts are full blown and on top of it there are man-made causes—deforestation, badly-executed urbanisation, destruction of catchment areas, forests etc.”

Perhaps the only answer is self-realisation. “Clearly, the recent events show India still has to a lot of work to do in the field of disaster management and adaptation to climate change,” adds Chandra Bhushan.