Natural disasters: Don't let them blindside India

As our vulnerabilities to extreme weather events inevitably increase, we need better risk monitoring, far greater preparedness and quick relief efforts to minimize the loss of lives

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Even as we celebrate an above-average monsoon this year, there is a flip side: the death and destruction that torrential rains have brought in their wake in some parts of India, especially areas that are ecologically fragile and least able to deal with it, such as our Himalayan belt. August started with the distressing news of a flash flood and landslide that flattened the village of Dharali in Uttarakhand. Subsequent days have seen a spate of reports of varying gravity from across the country, with heavy rainfall wreaking havoc in hilly regions. Jammu is the latest example. As we are still some weeks away from the monsoon's retreat, we cannot rule out the possibility of further scares of this nature. According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), North India has recorded its wettest monsoon since 2013, a year remembered for the Kedarnath flash flood. In the first 25 days of this month, the North had 21 events of extremely heavy rain, the highest since the IMD began collating this data in 2021 and 50% more than in the same month last year, whic