We all love the earth because it is our home. But with current problems like Global warming, pollution, uncontrolled construction etc, we are experiencing many problems on the earth. Global warming is causing sudden changes in the weather and extreme weather patterns have become very prominent (Read Post on Global Warning and its effects). The recent flash floods in Himachal and Punjab confirm this thing. Nowadays rains happen very fast and a huge amount of water is poured into the areas in a few hours only. Early, rains were slow and less damaging but now rains are fast and cause more damage in less time. But we can't blame nature alone because there are many other factors and human interference with nature that are also responsible for increasing these problems.
If nature has become hard for human beings then human beings are equally responsible for all this. Humans have increased the carbon emission many times thus causing the increase in global temperature. This increased temperature is responsible for the erratic weather patterns which cause sudden cloud bursts and heavy rains. Up to 10 years back, the Arabian Sea was a very calm sea as compared to other seas but now due to the rise in sea temperature, it has also become violent in nature. Now many deadly storms are starting from the Arabian Sea which was not common earlier. So in future, this trend is likely to continue and become even worse with the passing of time.
In recent floods in Himachal Pradesh, many houses, shops and hotels constructed near the beas river become damaged. Some of these houses were either uprooted by the water or totally submerged in mud and sand. It is important for the people and administration to not allow people to construct homes and commercial property very close to the riverbed because in the rainy season river width always increases and in floods, it increases many times. After the heavy rains, water needs a place to move forward but when it finds building in its path then it is likely to collide with them. We can see huge damage to houses and property in three cities (Mandi, Kullu and Manali) of Himachal. The main damage happened to the properties that were very close to the river. So next time, we can hope that administration will be strict in giving NOC to these people for any construction work near the river bed.
Already most of the Indian cities choke in heavy rains. In future, the situation looks to remain the same and we may see many more such disasters. Therefore, it is important that we should start implementing new things to address this problem. The need of the time is to redesign our cities in a way that they can handle heavy rains. But in India, we are struggling with old cities and their ageing systems. People fail to follow the rules and illegal construction is rampant. Nature is giving us wake-up signs to address this issue otherwise it will become too late to solve this problem and every year we will lose many people and property.
