DNA Edit: Water rises, cities fall

As heavy rains and powerful winds lashed the city for two consecutive days, bringing back frightening memories of the July 26, 2005, deluge, Mumbai has come to a grinding halt. With train services suspended and several areas submerged in waist-deep water, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s tall claims of monsoon preparedness stand ludicrously exposed.

Trapped in the midst of blinding sheets of rain with the wind playing havoc, citizens are anxious about their safety. Over the years, monsoon has been unkind to Mumbai — indulging only in the extremes — but civic officials and corporators have refused to learn from the aftermath of natural calamities. Mumbai isn’t alone in its predicament. Our cities, especially the metros, are extremely vulnerable to such outbursts of nature. As Mumbai teeters on the brink of a disaster, Kolkata has barely been able to scrape through an angry monsoon, even as huge swathes of North Bengal remained submerged in floodwaters barely a couple of weeks ago.

The 2015 flooding in Chennai​, in the wake of the most destructive rainfall the city witnessed in the last 100 years​, had left it battered and bruised. The country’s IT capital Bengaluru too had witnessed flooding in mid-August, unable to withstand severe pummelling. The defining attribute of Nature is its unpredictability, but dig deeper and the systemic faults of cities, aggravated by greed and ignorance, will surface to tell the true story. Instead of fortifying the existing infrastructure of the colonial era that speaks of vision and foresight, and taking the cue from latest technologies to expand, urban planners have resorted to ad-hoc means to respond to a burgeoning population problem. This, in turn, has compromised the fundamental principle of hydrology.

With natural water​bodies and wetlands fast disappearing, the scope of soaking up excess water and replenishing underground aquifers has significantly shrunk. Moreover, the rivers within the city, Mumbai’s Mithi for instance, which could have become a natural outlet for the rainwater, is choked with silt and garbage. Mithi is a symbol of urban neglect, the consequences of which Mumbaikars are facing now. In Chennai, the Cooum River, Adyar River and Buckingham Canal​ — which serve as the main rain water drain​ — are victims of encroachments. In his seminal book​, The Great Derangement, Amitav Ghosh​ draws upon the most up-to-date research to sound a dire warning for Mumbai. He writes, “…the research indicates that Arabian Sea is one of the regions of the world where cyclonic activity is likely to increase.” What the city is witnessing now is merely a trailer of the mega dance of death and destruction.