The Mumbai Floods of 2005
The above image is not taken from
a water sport game involving buses. It’s in fact taken from the streets of our
very own Mumbai city fifteen years back when heavy rainfall led to floods.
This happened exactly on 26th Jul, 2005 and today being an
unfortunate anniversary of that dreaded day, let’s take a trip down memory
lane.
Mumbai City received more than 100 millimeters (mm) of rain fall on that day and
such an event is categorized as ‘Cloud bursting’
or a sudden violent rainstorm.
As the day begun, Mumbaikars (people living in Mumbai), started out their journey towards offices, schools, colleges, businesses, etc....
not knowing what was in store for them ahead.
Suddenly, the clouds began to darken and the skies started to weep; people removed their shields which humans refer to as an ‘Umbrellas’ now-a-days and continued along their journey.
As mentioned earlier, ‘Cloud bursts’ refer to a phenomenon where an area
received more than 100 mm of rainfall. But on that day Mumbai received the 8th
heaviest rainfall figure of 994 mm. The
previous record high rainfall in a 24-hour period for Mumbai was 575 mm (22.6 inches) in 1974.
This caused Mumbai to become a
flooded disaster.
Suddenly, with the heavy rainfall,
Mumbaikars were stranded on roads, railway stations, remote areas, etc.
Schools had informed their
student’s parents to take their children home.
Some of the images that summarize
the story on that day.
In short, a city that never sleeps, a city that never stops came to a standstill on that day.
As per a report of the one of the
largest Indian English-language daily edition newspaper the ‘Business Standard’,
‘‘37,000 auto rickshaws, 4,000 taxis, 900 BEST
buses were damaged, and 10,000 trucks and
tempos were grounded.
The city had to bear a direct loss
of about Rupees 5.5 billion.
Local trains came to a halt due to
the water-logging on the tracks. 52 local trains were
damaged. Water logging led to a dramatic increase in traffic on road and low-lying
regions like Dharavi and Bandra-Kurla Complex were submerged’’.
Now back then, there
was no such Social media age of:
etc...
People did have mobile phones at that time but
since everyone was calling each other, the network was jammed and therefore
people had difficulty in informing their loved one of their whereabouts.
Mumbaikars had to rely on each
other on the roads, rescuing themselves and stray animals along the way.
These events were too much to
handle for our stray friends too
Overall, we lost 1094 people in Mumbai.
But why did these
people have to lose their lives?
What was the reason
for this flood and could it have been be avoided?
Given below are some of the major reasons:
Climate Change:
Climate change has played an important role in causing large-scale
floods in Mumbai.
The rising number of extreme rain
events are attributed to an increase in the fluctuations of the monsoon
westerly winds, due to increased warming in the Arabian Sea.
This results in occasional surges
of moisture transport from the Arabian Sea to the subcontinent, resulting in
widespread heavy rains lasting for 2–3 days.
The Mumbai 2005 floods also occurred due to moisture surge from the Arabian Sea.
Destruction of mangrove ecosystems
Mangrove ecosystems which exist
along the Mithi River and Mahim
Creek are being destroyed and replaced with construction.
Hundreds of acres of swamps in
Mahim creek have been reclaimed and put to use for construction by builders.
These ecosystems serve as a buffer
between land and sea. It is estimated that Mumbai has lost about 40% of its mangroves between 1995 and 2005, some
to builders and some to encroachment / slums.
Uncontrolled, unplanned
development in Northern Suburbs
Development in certain parts of Mumbai is haphazard and buildings are constructed without proper planning.
The drainage plans in northern suburbs is chalked out as an when required in a a particular area and not from an overall point of view.
Mumbai’s
storm water drainage system is a complex web of drains and rivers, creeks, and
drains and ponds, according to a research paper. The same article says that
this grid consists of a “hierarchical system of roadside surface drains,
underground drains and laterals, major and minor canals, and over 180
outfalls.”
While
many of these outlets flow directly into the Arabian Sea, some also drain into
the Mithi river, which happens to be an important natural storm water drain in
Mumbai.
So
Mumbai although never really slept, never really stood still, never really
shook to its core and many never never’s are used to reference Mumbai, but on
that day…
‘Mumbai met its Match’.
Source: Google multiverse
We
all love Mumbai, but we know its Pro’s & Con’s.
To
summarize this, I have also composed a ‘Poem’ which you can check out by
clicking on the below image.
Knowledge shared by:-
Wedmer Picardo
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