Tag: Floods

Calamities.

When I had suggested this topic for the weekly Friday LBC post, a major earthquake was all in the news and I suggested this off the cuff. Since then there have been other earthquakes in Japan, in South America, in Afghanistan and so on so forth. There have also been floods and wildfires and the latest are in Canada and India.

Calamities like the fires that are now raging in a part of our country have been traced back to man made problems just as many other natural calamities now are being blamed on things like climate change which many blame on human beings. The floods that hit parts of South India a few months ago were again blamed squarely on problems created by human beings, in not releasing water from dams on time, using up land meant to prevent flooding for construction of homes and offices and so on.

Calamities therefore can now come in not only due to natural causes like earth quakes, but fires, drought and floods can and do come from careless human beings. Climate change for instance needs the urgent attention of all of us and somehow, I don’t see enough being done to address this issue on a war footing. Here is a case to buttress my argument. We also now have drought in India which too needs a long term solution by sustainable means of water conservation many models of which are available within the country.

Other developments that go under the classification of calamities like train derailing, mass automobile accidents etc by and large are man made and they too need attention towards prevention.

Rains.

Global warming and Climate change are two terms interchangeably used and or used to establish a cause effect relationship. I am not very well versed in this phenomenon but something that has been happening this year makes me want to learn more about it, and rather than interrupt what I am in the process of learning now, I shall save it for the immediate post surgery period in October.

In Maharashtra in India where I live, the rains traditionally should have left with the Visarjan festival which was on the 11th inst. As I write this, it is raining cats and dogs and the photograph on top and the one below are of the rain’s intensity in my small garden today. Our press reports that the monsoon has not withdrawn as usual, and is expected to continue till the end of September.

My regular reader, known to other readers as Cheerful Monk, has had forest fire followed by flash floods which caused much damage to her property. The Eastern Sea Board of the USA was lashed with hurricanes and the UK and Ireland have been lashed with high winds and rain the last two days. Texas is still experiencing bush fires due to drought conditions. In all these places, I have friends who have been affected one way or the other.

In Pakistan and North and North Eastern parts of India floods have been playing havoc and causing loss of lives and crops/property. Pakistan particularly has been experiencing much damage for the second year running.

My personal experience the last three years has been very erratic behaviour of the seasons in India and particularly where I live.

I believe that something needs to be done but as with most important matters regarding our earth and its inhabitants, politics plays an important part and I have decided to let events unfold and merely be a spectator. I suppose that I can afford to take that stance as unlike Cheerful Monk, I haven’t lost anything. Yet.

Mula-Mutha River – II

Earlier this month, on the 2nd of August I had written about the river on the bank of which our township is located.

I had an occasion to cross the second bridge on that post this morning. This is what it looked like earlier this month.

And this is what the Mula-Mutha looked like this morning.

Incessant rains have played havoc in some parts of our city and some families have had to be evacuated.

The rains continue and hopefully will start abating from this week.