Deluge Of The Century

Kerala's worst flood since 1924 reinforces how local environmental degradation and lack of disaster preparedness can make extreme weather events deadly.

- Shreeshan Venkatesh With Rejimon Kuttappan In Kerala

WE CAN'T understand which one is river and which one is road.” That is how Rajesh S, a resident of Chengannur town in Kerala, described the ground zero situation to Down To Earth (DTE) speaking over a mobile phone. River Pamba swelled bringing Chengannur under water. “But we all expected this would happen,” he says. The day the state government decided to open all the dams, Rajesh told DTE, the devastating flood was just a matter of time. As the outside world tracked news of heavy rains for more than a week after August 8, the response was just a habitual disclaimer. For a state living with two monsoons and fighting drought for the last three years with a monsoon deficit ranging up to 34 per cent, it was a respite. Day after day, over 11 days, floods gripped all the state’s 14 districts with an unheard of ferocity. Amateur mobile videos of the destruction started streaming out: hills crumbling down as debris, people being swept away by gushing streams, dams brimming with water and most of the towns and villages filled with displaced people. This was Kerala’s worst flood in almost 100 years.

On August 19, for the first time in the preceding 11 days, satellite images of Kerala captured fractures in the cloud cover. The state government lifted the red alert consequently. The fragmented clouds over the state unearthed the real devastation. Everybody had one question: was it normal?

“It is abnormal but not unusual,” says DS Pai, the head of climate services division of the India Meteorological Department ( IMD). Official response is always presented using the tact of terminology. Over 11 straight days of tempestuous rainfall, nearly 25 trillion litres of water fell on Kerala—an area of 38,800 square kilometres cramped with mountain ranges; third-highest population density in the country; and, 44 rivers with 61 dams—with apocalyptic fury.

A ravaged landscape