FAMILIES IN KERALA RELIVE PAST FLOODS AS HEAVY RAIN RETURNS
Experts have blamed the Indian state’s extreme weather on human-induced climate change
As soon as the first warning about intense rainfall in Kerala came, Rijo Rajan knew it could turn into a nightmare.
Mr Rajan, 28, and his family immediately prepared for the impending deluge, fearing more of the devastating flooding that has struck the coastal Indian state in recent years.
By Sunday evening, their worst fears had been realised as incessant rain caused landslides and flash floods that experts have blamed on climate change.
Mr Rajan’s two-storey house in Thiruvalla, in Pathanamthitta district, was half-marooned in the brown water gushing from the overflowing Pamba and Manimala rivers.
Fearing more rain, the family of five is helpless.
“We are just praying for the rains to stop. We are very worried for our lives,” Mr Rajan, a chef, told The National from his flooded home.
“There is no power supply and we are going through a difficult time.”
In 2018, Kerala, a state of more than 34 million people, had the worst floods in a century when heavy rain caused flash floods and landslides that killed about 500 people and made a million homeless.
The following year, more than 125 people died in flash floods and landslides in the state. More than 50 were killed in August last year when landslides struck the hilly Munnar region.
The latest spell of torrential rain was caused by mini-cloudbursts triggered by an unusual transformation of the cloud system over the Western Ghats mountain range, Dr S Abhilash, an atmospheric scientist at the Cochin University of Science and Technology, told The National.
“Kerala never experienced this type of classical cloudburst exceeding 100 millimetres in one hour, but considering the vulnerable landscapes, the mountain region, a rainfall of 50mm can trigger a lot of damage,” he said.
“We expect mini-cloudburst events as the change in climate is supporting that, because global warming is adding more water vapour to the atmosphere and it will produce a lot of heavy rain.”
Heavy rain has hit the state since Friday.
Twenty-seven bodies were recovered. Most were from Kottayam and Idukki, the two worst-affected districts, which on Saturday received 164.5mm and 305.5mm of rain, respectively.
Officials said dozens were still missing and about 9,000 people had been transferred to temporary shelters across the state.
Scores of houses and roads were swept away, with military helicopters being used to reach areas cut off by the floods.
On Monday, India’s meteorological office said the extreme weather would continue and forecast that rain would lash the region until Thursday.
Most of Kerala falls under a highly ecologically sensitive region in the Western Ghats, which extend through India’s west coast. It is one the world’s largest biodiversity hot spots.
In 2011, a government committee led by ecologist Madhav Gadgil recommended that all of the Western Ghats be declared a sensitive region and “almost all developmental activities such as mining, thermal and power plants halted in it”.
Development such as roads, buildings and rock quarries in sensitive areas of the state have helped cause natural disasters, Dr Abhilash said.
Any infrastructural activity on the hills’ slopes can harm the region’s environment, with regular downpours causing soil erosion and landslides, he said.
“The event is a combination of man-made disaster and climate change,” Dr Abhilash said.
“Though rainfall is triggering this, the man-made activities in the Western Ghats are aggravating the disaster potential,”
A visualisation tool released recently by Nasa projected that the sea level in Kochi, Kerala’s most densely populated city, would rise by 300mm within four decades.
A report released in 2018 by India’s National Centre for Coastal Research said the shorelines of several coastal regions in the state had eroded by up to 45 per cent.
Dr Abhilash said the state could be hit by more natural disasters if swift corrective action is not taken.