:: Editorial

Floods in South a national calamity

Oct 06 : Rain havoc and rushing floods on a scale usually associated with eastern India and neighbouring Bangladesh have laid low peninsular India. The frightening magnitude of things suggests that more than 200 people have been killed in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra, Karnataka taking the biggest hit with 168 deaths so far. Thousands have been injured in the three states. Two lakh homes have been washed away in 15 districts of Karnataka. From the sketchy reports available, four lakh acres of agricultural land have been submerged in Andhra Pradesh and one lakh people evacuated. Krishna, Guntur and Nalgonda districts suffered the most in Andhra, although the towns of Kurnool, Mehboobnagar and Nandyal too presented a disturbing picture with waist-high water all over the urban areas. The worst rains in a hundred years in the normally dry northern districts of Karnataka accounted for the flood, and the rainwater breaking the banks of reservoirs and gushing into neighbouring Andhra Pradesh apparently compounded matters in that state. It is said Andhra Pradesh has not ever known disaster on a scale such as this. The uncommon rainfall at the tail end of the southwest monsoon may well be attributable to climate change. What is shocking, however, is that the government’s early-warning systems have failed to have an impact. Either they didn’t pick up the signs early enough, or the administration in three states failed to communicate the warning to the community level — rural and urban. In any case, questions may be worth asking about the efficacy of our indigenous satellites that are charged with mapping weather data and forecasting droughts and floods.

Battling nature’s fury is not easy even for rich countries, as has been shown to be the case in the United States in recent years. But the level of poverty in developing societies makes the quality of suffering worse than it might be. Water-borne epidemics are prone to follow in the wake of flood devastation. Crops, cattle, homes have been washed away on an unprecedented scale. As such, it might be in the fitness of things if the tragic situation in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh is declared to be a national calamity. This will make the provision of relief, and the terms of obtaining succour from different quarters, easier. The Karnataka chief minister has raised a demand of Rs 10,000 crores from the Centre as relief. Andhra Pradesh will also surely need a tidy sum in order to get over the immediate shock. It is to be hoped that the Centre will be sympathetic to the concerns of the people of these states. Agriculture hasn’t fared well this year in the country on account of unduly dry conditions, or drought, in many parts. The southern floods can only make matters worse. All of this can’t not have an impact on public finances as demand for relief mounts. While managing the economy at a time when the effects of the recession haven’t wholly been overcome, the government will be called upon to present a compassionate face.