Wild weather: Asia’s monsoon mayhem

Many people have lost their lives as vast swathes of South Asia are swamped by heavy rains in the seasonal downpour

WHILE the world’s attention was focused on the drama unfolding in Texas, a catastrophe of even greater proportions had been unfolding on the other side of the world for several weeks. India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan had been pummelled by heavy monsoons that claimed the lives of more than 1 400 people and affected an estimated 40 million.

A third of Bangladesh was left underwater. More than 18 000 schools have been closed, many of them destroyed, which means 1,8 million schoolchildren have nowhere to go to.

Monsoons are nothing new to Southeast Asia, of course – flooding occurs every year as rivers burst their banks during the June-September season.

“But I’ve never seen anything quite like this in my life,” farmer Ashok Baruah told journalists.

The ferocity of this year’s downpours has left the region reeling. In Mumbai, India, 34 people died when rains caused a building to collapse in the city. The death toll could’ve been much worse as the building housed a nursery school, but the structure collapsed half an hour before the doors were due to open.

Authorities fear thousands of old buildings in the city could be at risk of collapse.

Streets are flowing with muddy water, sewage and rubbish. Many people died of electrocution, forcing power to be cut off in Karachi, Pakistan.

People have expressed their frustration and despair at the lack of infrastructure to cope with the monsoon season.

“Why does nothing change? Why are we left to fend for ourselves when they had weather forecasts warning them of extremely heavy rainfall?” asked Shobhaa De, an author and columnist.

TV personality Suhel Seth hit out at the “scoundrels, rogues, villains, rascals, incompetents and useless fools” in the

municipal authority for not being better prepared for the deluge.

In a hard-hitting report released recently, India’s federal auditor also criticised the country’s lack of preparedness. Tens of millions of dollars earmarked for flood management remained unspent.

Disaster management officials hit back, claiming it was unfair to criticise given the scale of this year’s flooding.

“If you get a whole year’s rain in one to two days, how will you handle it?” said Anirudh Kumar, of the eastern Indian state of Bihar’s disaster management department. “No preparation and planning will work.”

‘If you get a whole year’s rain in one to two days, how will you handle it?’

A man carries cattle to higher ground at Topa village in Nepal. RIGHT: A woman clutches a goat while seated on a raft in the flood-stricken village of Koliabor in India.

ABOVE: Going nowhere – a stranded aircraft at Biratnagar airport in Nepal. RIGHT: An elephant of the Assam forest in India transports locals through the floodwaters.

LEFT: A man is pulled from a collapsed sixstorey building in Mumbai. ABOVE: Boys wade through high water in Howrah, India. RIGHT: Dev Kuma Sada guides the body of his nephew through the waters in the Koshi river in Nepal. The boy died from sickness caused by exposure to rainfall. BELOW: Nepali residents stay afloat in the Birgunj Parsa, south of Kathmandu.

LEFT: A child catches a ride on his father’s back in the floodwaters at Bogra, Bangladesh. ABOVE: Cars and buses try to navigate Mumbai’s busy streets.