(Image: FB page of Special Relief Commissioner, Odisha)
The Very Severe Cyclonic Storm "Titli" has done a
lot of damage to Odisha coasts, with high speed wind and the extreme rainfall
that followed. Titli crossed the coast near
Palasa in Srikakulam district of Andhra Pradesh to the southwest of Gopalpur with
estimated maximum sustained surface wind speed of 140-150 kmph gusting to 165
kmph between 0430 and 0530 hours IST of 11th October 2018.
Like the Phailin in the same time of the year, back in 2013,
the rainfall in the aftermath caused floods and other devastation that the
government had not anticipated well. About
24 human deaths and more than 24000 livestock casualty recorded so far. The actual figure may be more. There is no estimate available for the
casualty suffered by wildlife. A television news channel report this morning
showed how elephants were being washed away due to heavy floods in Mahanadi but
I could not confirm the details as yet.
The heavy downpour that followed the landfall of Titli
flooded the Rushikulya and Vanshadhara rivers affecting 16 districts of Odisha. As per reports shared by the Special Relief
Commissioner of the state, more than 5.7 million people in 7229 villages of
these districts have been affected by the rainfall and the floods. Agriculture in these villages has received a
heavy jolt as more than 2.3 hundred thousand hectare of crop fields have been
damaged.
Going beyond politics, some real questions need to be asked
-
Odisha's opposition parties are already criticising the
state government for not being able to keep its promise of 'zero casualty' but
the government seems to have given more attention to the relief and
rehabilitation works, rightly so.
The political debate will not settle soon. We will all participate
in that, to understand where the failure lay and how to change our plans in
future. Did the weatherman fail in proper predictions of the aftermath? Did the
government fail to gauge the gravity of the predictions? Did the local administration not act in line
with the Disaster Management Plan? Did the local Disaster Management Committees
(supposed to have been formed and trained by the government and other agencies)
failed in carrying out the due procedures?
All these questions will haunt the state of Odisha that's currently engaged
in relief and preliminary rehabilitation efforts.
The Debris that go into the sea –
In this post I am trying to flag an important issue that is
normally not discussed as a major issue in such storm stroke aftermaths. I am talking about the debris that is washed
away from the inlands to the sea. Today
morning Himanshu Thakkar of SANDRP twitted to me a video https://youtu.be/9wazyFvJZbU that shows
how the mouth of Rushikulya river has received loads of garbage and other
debris due to Titli and floods.
(Image: Screen shot of YouTube Video by Times of India)
We often forget that our rivers are carriers of all our
wastes into the sea throughout the year, more so during the monsoon
months. Disasters such as this add to
the force of the water that go into the sea and bring along more of our wastes
into the sea. Earlier I have already
written extensively how plastic pollution of the sea is causing huge damage to
the oceans as well the earth. http://bit.ly/2QRjOEB
(Image: Screenshot from my article published in www.sixdegreesnews.org)
Time our disaster planning factors in these menaces along
with other damages being done. Climate
change is already causing more storms and aggravating the damages. Some studies point out that the frequency of
storms in the Bay of Bengal is increasing, more than any other bay, due to
climate change.
We need to combine our brains on this and have more
discussions, studies and action plans.
Ranjan Panda
Convenor, Combat Climate Change Network, India
Email: ranjanpanda@gmail.com
Skype: ranjan.climatecrusader
Tweets @ranjanpanda
Tweets @MahanadiRiver
