Indian floods: Flash floods in Himalayas are not wrath of nature rather we engineer floods
Sana Haroon for Dispatch News Desk
With the beginning of Monsoon in sub-continent, reports of flash floods have started to appear in news in India and China. Flash floods are increasing in Himalays foothills with every passing day. This is not warth of nature rather this is manmade disaster because we cut trees and make the land pron for disasters during the last three decades.
Recent massive landslide in Malin village of Maharashtra Pune district has killed 10 persons so far while over 160 are trapped under the debris and there are predictions of more rain in the next few hours.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan reached this remote area along with other members of his cabinet including Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, Harshvardhan Patil and Madhukarro Pichad. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has expressed condoled the loss of lives in the tragedy. This is good politicians stood with people of this remote area but nothing was announced to control deforestation and theft of tress from this prone regime to flash floods.
There are reports in media that a portion of hill came crashing down on the village due to heavy rain. The authorities are facing hurdles in rescue operations as the village is located in a remote area, about 12 km from Dimbhe dam. As many as 269 workers of Indian National Disaster Response Force have reached landslide affected area.
Climate change is the reality of our era and mountain areas are particularly vulnerable to climate change.
Change in temperature is contributing rapid melting of glaciers that is leading to the formation and expansion of glacial lakes. This situation contributes an increase in the number of glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs). If the present trends persist, the glacier ice mass will gradually be reduced, which will impact on the availability of water resources.
This situation has aggravated due to deforestation at foothills of mountains and soil is naked so it cannot sustain. Situation is similar in Pakistan and China also. There is high time that some strict decision must be taken at government level to control deforestation in mountain areas if we want to avoid such human disasters again and again.
