[Climate scientists say that these
ravaging global floods should serve as a wake-up call for leaders to take action on climate
change. While monsoon rains are a regular occurrence in India, a warmer
atmosphere retains more moisture, which causes heavy rainfall during storms,
some experts note.]
Emergency teams confronted thick
sludge and debris in attempts to evacuate people across hard-hit Maharashtra
state, which includes Mumbai. Thousands of trucks were stuck on the partly
submerged highway between Mumbai and the technology hub of Bangalore. Major
rivers were still in danger of rising further, the Reuters news agency reported.
The scenes in India echoed
disasters around the world caused by deadly floods in recent weeks in China’s central Henan province and in Germany and Belgium.
[Summer
of floods: The climate connection behind deadly downpours around the world]
Climate scientists say that these
ravaging global floods should serve as a wake-up call for leaders to take action on climate
change. While monsoon rains are a regular occurrence in India, a warmer
atmosphere retains more moisture, which causes heavy rainfall during storms,
some experts note.
“The rain fury that lashed
Mahabaleshwar … is a strong warning against any more tampering with the
ecologically fragile Western Ghats,” Indian economist Devinder Sharma wrote on Twitter on Friday, referring to a chain of
mountains running parallel to India’s western coast.
The Maharashtra city of Kolhapur —
which sits at the banks of one of the region’s most important waterways, the
Panchganga River — was almost totally submerged, Times of India drone footage shows.
A landslide Thursday flattened most
homes in the village of Taliye — 110 miles southeast of Mumbai — where the
death toll reached at least 49, according to the Times of India. Dozens of people
remained missing.
“The possibility of rescuing them
alive is thin as they’ve been trapped in mud for more than 36 hours,” Reuters
quoted a government official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity as he was
not authorized to speak with media, as saying.
“No advance disaster alert was
given to the villagers,” said Milind Gangawane, a Taliye resident interviewed
by the Times of India. “Our tribal hamlet has 45 houses with a population of
over 120. Boulders from the hill fell from a height of 100 feet in the
landslide.”
Around 90,000 people have been
affected by the floods, the Maharashtra government said in a statement, Reuters
reported. The hill station of Mahabaleshwar, south of Mumbai, recorded its
highest ever rainfall: 60 centimeters, or more than 23 inches, in 24 hours.
The chief minister of Maharashtra,
Uddhav Thackeray, on Friday wrote on Twitter to the people of Taliye: “You have
faced a major tragedy. Hence, right now, you just need to take care of
yourself. Leave the rest to the Government. We will ensure that everyone is
rehabilitated and compensated for their losses.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote
in a tweet Friday that he was “anguished by the loss of lives due to a
landslide” in Maharashtra. “The situation in Maharashtra due to heavy rains is
being closely monitored and assistance is being provided to the affected.”
Other parts of the world have also
recently experienced extreme weather events — heat waves, wildfires and drought.
India’s Meteorological Department
warned of extremely heavy rainfall through the weekend in the Maharashtra
region. Citizens staying close to rivers were advised to take precautions — but
“alternate arrangements must be made” for sites with coronavirus patients, wrote Thackeray.
In some areas, the rain intensity
decreased on Saturday, causing a slight fall in river levels, the Times of
India reported.