Few Hours of Rain Dupes Bangalore City in Water
India's Silicon Valley Bengaluru is currently plagued by rain, not scorching heat. From Sunday evening to Monday morning, there was so much rain that it was as if the entire city was inundated, 5 people have died and houses have been submerged. More than 20 lakes in the city are overflowing with water. Underpasses and flyovers have been flooded, disrupting traffic across the city for several hours. Vehicular movement was halted and public bus services came to a standstill in many areas. People are being rescued and in many areas people were seen pumping out water from their homes. India's IT hub is a perfect example of how bad the situation is in urban centres. Similarly, the situation in Maharashtra is bad. Mumbai and its surrounding areas turned into ponds. In Pune, just one hour of rain has made the city in a bad condition. In Bengaluru, there are 204 lakes, of which around 180 are under encroachment. In such a situation, whenever there is more rain, the water does not flow due to lack of space and goes into the areas. Overall, if the lakes had not been encroached upon so much, there would not have been a flood-like disaster in Bengaluru. Poor maintenance of roads and drains has made it vulnerable to floods. Dumping of solid waste into storm drains as well as illegal constructions blocking drains are affecting the infrastructure. The biggest mistake city planners make is that they must clean rainwater using pumps, channels and drainage. Due to the redevelopment of old areas, large buildings have come up. Due to low soil absorption capacity, these areas lose their green cover. Rainwater is usually soaked up by the earth or runoff into natural lakes and ponds and is soaked up by floodplains, coastal wetlands, salt marshes, lakes, rivers, natural green cover, farms and non-concrete lands that also recharge groundwater. Concrete prevents this. Geologists and urban experts are ringing alarm bells, warning that the city's flood problem is likely to persist for many years or even decades. Who is to blame? The ever-expanding layer of concrete buried beneath the city that is formed by the construction of uncontrolled high-rise buildings has shut down nature's ability to soak up rain.
Once known as the Garden City, Bengaluru is now reeling under the weight of unregulated urbanisation and the consequences are getting worse with each rainy season. Mumbai's notoriously high tide adds to nature's fury. Apart from this, unseasonal rains are also occurring due to atmospheric instability. Human activities such as deforestation, urbanization and pollution are causing unseasonal rains. Now the rainfall pattern has also changed. The amount of rain that used to fall in the whole day is now 100 meters in three hours.
The paradox of progress is that cities sink when mankind advances. Prosperity through technology causes mass migration to urban areas and the pressure on resources, land and systems disturbs the balance of nature. Uncontrolled industries and pollution are the main culprits of climate change which ultimately causes devastation. India's historic cities – Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata – are slowly sinking. Similarly, along with other metros like Bengaluru and Kochi, many smaller cities are also drowning. The basic problem of monsoon disasters is unchecked urban population growth.
The population of the top five metros – Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai and Bengaluru – is 37.8 crore and growing. India is poised to become an urban disaster. Forty million Indians are likely to be affected by rising sea levels due to global warming, which is melting the ice sheets. India is not saving for rainy days. Every time it rains, there are frequent reports of flood-related deaths and crippled infrastructure, urban displacement and economic losses. Many lakes and canals in Kolkata today have become just mud. Many have disappeared altogether and buildings have come up on dry land, their stability is anybody's guess.
The spectacular new Kolkata (a fast-growing planned satellite city) has grabbed low-lying fields that once soaked up running water. Rapid exploitation of groundwater is also drowning the landscape. The Sundarbans, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is rapidly losing its ground thanks to its natural mangrove forests as the water level of the Bay of Bengal is rising faster than the global average. The displaced people are coming to Kolkata. They live in areas where people have to wade through filthy and stinking flood waters during the monsoon. Kolkata, however, is working on increasing its green cover. The threat of urban disasters in India is increasing and it requires effective strategies, strong infrastructure and community involvement to deal with it.