Climate Change and Calamities never leave any chance to warn mankind to behave with nature. We humans surviving in the lap of Mother Nature have not been good enough towards it ever since a long time and now it has started showing the outcome of it, it’s unintentionally or intentionally a direct impact on us. Calamities have always left a wave of fear inside every human, as Calamities take away lives of many causes destruction, property loss and so much more.
Each of us loving on this planet should question ourselves whether we have been kind enough towards nature? Are we really working to do something to compensate for climate change?
Another day, another news of unfortunate events caused by Climate Change in parts of the world. Uttarakhand is again hit by a natural calamity, the 2013 Uttarakhand Flood is still not forgotten and another calamity is there to scare and warn mankind.
What happened on Sunday,7 February 2021 has raised a situation of emergency in Uttarakhand. The sudden flood that occurred in the Dhauli Ganga, Rishi Ganga, Alaknanda rivers triggered fear and panic in people of the area. It gave people a flashback of what happened in 2013.
The reason behind the flood was a glacier broke off near Raini village in Tapovan area of Chamoli district in the Garhwal Himalayas. Scientists cite this unfortunate event as a result of climate change, due to global warming the glaciers have started to melt and hence such events take place.
Past Stories of similar disasters
Karnataka Floods
August 2019, a month that flooded the whole of so many states, destruction, loss of lives and property which actually altered the life of people for the worst.
The western coast of India was hit harshly by heavy rains, the states of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala withstand the heavy downpour. The state of Karnataka has to endure severe damage and destruction, adverse effects in terms of property and life. As per the reports a figure of almost 7 lacs people were displaced,14 were missing and 61 people lost their lives.
Cyclone Fani
Cyclone Fani hit Odisha during the first week of May,2019 it was considered as the first severe cyclonic storm. This Cyclone took away 89 lives,72 of which were from India and the rest 17 of Bangladesh. Odisha lost a major number of lives, almost 64.
Let us look at how these events affect humans.
These events undoubtedly cause a huge trouble to humans. There is a loss of life, property, infrastructure etc.
- Individual loss and suffering
Such events affect people mentally as well as physically. The pain of injury, loss of dear ones, property, wealth at large makes people’s life standstill. Studies have reflected that post such events people who witnessing or going through such type of loss lands into depression, tend to develop serious post-traumatic stress disorders This also leads to visible migrations by people.
- Impact on Economy
Natural Calamities have a huge impact on Economy. The Economy gets affected in so many ways, as the loss of property, infrastructure is an obvious event of a natural calamity. Economies sometimes post disasters hard to recover, there is a loss of GDP, import-export gets withheld due to a disaster, business, local markets being shut down due to odd conditions, these all affect the Economic graph of a country in an inevitable manner.
- Environment
Just like human beings being affected harshly by the natural disasters, the environment also gets hit by these unfortunate events. There is a danger caused to lives under water, plants, trees are also being affected.
Studies over years have shown some facts that are scary yet alarming for human beings. It’s found that melting of glaciers causes the quick desalination of salt water oceans,this can lead to decline of around 30% of edible fish supply, along with reduction of coral reefs causing harm to several coastal regions.
How long does it take to overcome the loss caused by a Natural Calamity?
The recovery takes a lot of time, situations do not usually get the same like before in such areas, lives take time to get back on track. Economic recovery never happens actually, everything is altered forever and people have to accept what’s gone and what is new as the new normal. The countries which have a planned way of dealing with the disasters tend to recover faster like Japan. Whereas countries which do not have a rescue plan or aren’t wealthy enough face a lot of difficulty.
The people who live in areas where the probability of natural calamity to take place is high are found to be mentally prepared as compared to the ones who witness such unfortunate events for the first time in their lives.
What can we do in order to prevent Disasters?
Climate Change – The only thing to combat or avoid disasters is to focus on the issue ” Climate Change” everything happening is an outcome of Climate Change only. We need more education, activeness on this issue. Climate Change is the real issue which we at large need to pay attention to.
Planting trees, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, stopping deforestation, making our planet Green is the only key.
Damage Control- We fully cannot prevent the Disasters, we can do minimal things that are being prepared towards controlling the damage or facing the damage caused. Rapid action to take, not panicking, taking responsibilities are few things that we as a citizen can do in order to control the damage which a disaster causes.
Our response strategies should be top notch. The government should make sure there are enough resources to deal with natural calamities, be it things or rescue teams/ forces.
Written By- Rituja Roy
Edited By- Priyanka Sukhwani
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