NEW DELHI, Sept 10:
Jammu and Kashmir flood tragedy, the worst in the last 60 years, has a strong connection with the climate change compounded by poor preparedness on part of the State and unplanned urbanisation that destroyed wetlands and choked the water exit channels, according to a study of the Centre for Science and Environment.
Sharing her research into the causes of the disaster with media here today, CSE director general Sunita Narain said it was extremely surprising that J&K had no flood forecasting system, while it was counted among the flood prone States and its disaster management system was also very rudimentary.
She also did not buy the explanation of the Central Water Commission that the State Government did not ask for setting up a forecasting centre.
“Do they have to wait to be invited by the State Government for this?” she asked.
Ms Narain and her deputy Chandra Bhushan said the extreme weather events like very heavy rainfall in a very short period had reminded that climate change was happening with a heavy cost to countries like India.
The latest in a series of such events are Mumbai floods of 2005, the Leh cloudburst of 2010 and the Uttarakhand floods of 2013. These disasters have claimed thousands of lives and caused lossess runing into thousands of crores of rupees.
The ruthless destruction in the last 100 years, of more than 50 per cent of the lakes, ponds and wetlands of Srinagar for constructing buildings and roads has played havoc with the ecology of the beautiful city.
Similarly, the banks of the Jhelum river have also been encroached upon reducing the river’s drainage capacity .
Citing figures of the Indian remote sensing department, the CSE scientists said the built up area in Srinagar had increased from 1745.73 hectares in 1911 to 10, 791.50 hectares in 2004.
The massive construction that happened in Srinagar after this period had not been taken into account in these figures. Ms Narain also questioned the efficacy of the India Meteorological Department (IMD) warning of heavy rains, saying it did not now how specifically actionable it was. Meanwhile, a team sent by an NGO Zakat Foundation of India headed by social and rights activist Dr Zafar Mehmud has found pathetic lack of rescue and relief operation in J&K.
He said that the team found that thousands of bodies were floating in Srinagar itself.
In southern Kashmir several villages have been fully washed away. These include Kakapura, Ledpura, Awantipura, Goripura, Sangam.
“Only 60 boats have been pressed into service, 1000 more boats are immediately required. Only 21 choppers have been deployed, 200 more are required at once,”he said.
The CSE quoting a study done by B N Goswami of Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune said heavy and very heavy rainfall events in India had increased over the past 50-60 years. Between 1950 and 2000, the incidence of heavy rainfall events (100 mm/day) and very heavy events (150 mm/day) had increased and moderate events (5-100 mm/day) had decreased.
Most climate models also predict that India will be hit more and more by extreme rainfall events as the world continues to warm in the coming decades.
The latest report of the United Nation’s Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says floods and droughts are likely to increase in India. The country will get more rainfall but lesser number of rainy days. Increase in extreme precipitation during monsoons is also predicted.
Ms Narain said it was high time that Government got out of its denial mode and saw the linkages between the climate change and extreme weather events like the one that was happening in .
“We will have to accept that climate change is going to affect us more and more in the future. We will, therefore, have to start preparing to adapt to the changing climate, and start internalising climate change adaptation in all developmental policies and programme,” she said. (UNI)
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