THE CYCLE OF DELUGE AND DEATH MUST END

NDIA is losing its battle with climate change.

- GURBIR SINGH

The twin tragedies of 3 students suffocating in the basement of the Rau's IAS Study Circle in the Capital, and landslides wiping out of entire villages in Wayanad, Kerala on Tuesday night are grim reminders of our failure to understand nature's fury.

Delhi's grim basement death trap is still being investigated, but the initial magisterial findings reveal the Old Rajendra Nagar area's drainage system was inadequate to deal with the quantity of water that flooded the basement in which the Rau Classes library was situated.

On the fateful day, water, having nowhere else to go, entered the basement with such force that it filled the room where the students were trapped till the ceiling, and jammed the biometric-operated doors. But the big question is: How were study classes permitted in a basement, when municipal law permits basements only for storage?

In Wayanad, as army engineers struggle to connect cut-off areas of Chooralmala to reach the worst hit spots, the questions being asked are: why was human habitation allowed at the foot of these landslide-prone hills? Why was there no learning from the August 2019 disaster in Puthumala - 5 kms away where landslides claimed 17 lives?

Urban planning fails

The tragic deaths in Delhi of students has once again underlined the sordid failure of city planning. The Capital's municipal government has not learnt anything if the viral videos of a flooded Rajya Sabha hall and journalists enjoying a drink amid the sloshing waters in the Press Club of India's lounge on Rafi Marg are any indication.