Governments can handle cyclones better by investing in town planning and infrastructure
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Cyclone Nivar raised fears of another epic disaster (घोर विपदा/आपदा; great harm, damage, or serious difficulty) for millions of coastal residents in the south, but its passage (मार्ग; moving through somewhere, especially over the sea) overland near Puducherry early on November 26 was less destructive than anticipated (पुर्वानुमान; to imagine or expect that something will happen).
The reported loss of at least three lives is a relatively low toll (क्षति; suffering or damage) for such a large-scale weather system, although property and agriculture have suffered considerable damage from the fierce (उग्र/भीषण; violent and forceful) winds and massive volume of rain it dumped in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.
Citizens and the government were fearful of a deluge (बाढ़; a very large amount of rain or water) that could be a repeat of the 2015 flood — which killed a few hundred people — and they overcame COVID19 fatigue (थकान; extreme tiredness) to prepare for the worst.
There was also a welcome emphasis on periodic alerts and warnings. The IMD has been getting better at forecasting slow-moving, linear tropical cyclones in the Bay of Bengal, and multiple satellites now provide cyclone data.The deployment of over two dozen NDRF teams and disaster management equipment along the coast reassured civic agencies. Not everyone escaped Nivar with a minor penalty, however, and for sub-urban Chennai, the peak one-day rainfall of 31 cm in Tambaram wrought (लाना; caused something to happen) destruction mirroring (सच्चाई दिखाना; to represent something honestly) what happened five years ago; smaller inland towns have also suffered inundation (बाढ़/सैलाब; a flood, or the fact of being flooded with water) and severe losses.
The aftermath (परिणाम; the effects caused by an event) now presents an opportunity to make a full assessment not just for distribution of relief but also to understand the impacts of extreme monsoon weather.
The Tamil Nadu government has shown alacrity (तत्परता; speed and eagerness) in handling the acute challenge of a severe weather event, which has occurred in the run-up to the Assembly election due early next year.Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami made field visits, and in parallel, the DMK, as the lead Opposition, mounted (बढ़ता हुआ; gradually increasing or rising) its own relief operations.
What must worry the two major parties is that periodic papering of the cracks does not offer a sustainable solution to Chennai’s evident civic decay.
There is extensive documentation on the loss of its floodplains, lakes and peri-urban wetlands to encroachment, a key factor that is exacerbating (बिगाड़ना; to make something that is already bad even worse) monsoon flooding.
This land grab is made possible by the benign indulgence (दयापूर्ण सन्तोष; pleasant and kind occasion when you do not mind someone's failure or bad behaviour) of successive governments. What is more, governments have not shown the rigour (कठोरता; strictness; the quality of being detailed and careful) to collect and publish data on annual flooding patterns, and measure the peak flows in the neglected rivers and canals to plan remedies.
Appalling indifference to land use norms has spawned (पैदा करना; to cause something new, to grow) an amorphous (अनाकार/आकारहीन; having no fixed form or shape) housing sector characterised by inflated (बढ़ा हुआ; value is higher than it should be), speculative (आनुमानिक; based on a guess and not on information) prices but no foundation of civic infrastructure.
To keep Tamil Nadu competitive, governments and local bodies should hardwire (कठोर बनाना; make harder/strong) urban planning and invest heavily for a future of frequent disruptive weather.
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