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Hurricanes Harvey and Irma have shaken the Donald Trump administration. In a country like the US where latest technological innovations are aplenty, deaths and damages, although not huge, were significant. Even in Asia, deaths due to worst flooding were mounting while damages to infrastructures and crops were colossal. Why was it so? Particularly in a region where floods and cyclones are not new phenomena.
Experts attribute deaths and damages to laxity in disaster preparedness. The same is true in case of the United States.
Floods had hit parts of Bangladesh, northeast India and Nepal hard since mid-August. Triggered by monsoon rains, the floods affected an estimated 40 million people and killed more than 1,200 in the three countries. In recent days, floods have also inundated the Indian city of Mumbai, and Karachi, the sprawling capital of Pakistan's Sindh Province. "What happened in Nepal, where automated flood forecasting tools and early warning systems are relatively recent, is an example of how the region has tried to better prepare for the yearly monsoon season. But it's also a sign of the vast gaps that remain in one of the world's most densely populated flood-prone regions," says a Nepalese environmentalist.
Even in areas where the new SMS alert system was employed, some residents still struggled to use the lifesaving information. In some cases there was a crucial missing link: a clear plan and a safe evacuation centre on higher ground. "We issued the forecast, we sent out the mass SMS," he said, "but then people told us, 'Okay, we know the flood is coming, but where to go?" In each affected country, the magnitude of the floods has sparked questions about why authorities were seemingly caught unprepared.
Indian newspapers pleaded for a 'radical rethinking' of flood preparedness. "The floods that kill hundreds of people across South Asia year after year… can be forecast, prepared for, engineered and insured against and managed, but are not," The Economic Times stated.
"We weren't prepared for this," lamented experts in Bangladesh. "Bangladesh is not new to the problem of floods, but year after year, we find ourselves woefully unprepared." That the severe August flooding inundated parts of three countries in quick succession was no coincidence: river systems in Nepal, Bangladesh and large parts of India are intertwined over a vast basin known as the Ganges-Brahmaputra.
When the Karnali River swells, its waters don't stop at Nepal's border; it splits and flows into India's Uttar Pradesh State as the Ghaghara River - itself a tributary of the Ganges. Likewise, the Brahmaputra River rushes into Bangladesh only after curving through India's Assam State. Most of Bangladesh's land mass is a river delta for the basin.
All three countries are among the most flood-exposed nations in the world. More people in India and Bangladesh are affected by river floods than in any other country, according to the World Resources Institute.
The two natural disasters have, however, set at naught the US President's justification of his withdrawal from the historic Paris climate accord. That climate change has taken into effect has amply been evident from what befell the US and Asian countries including Bangladesh this year. Dr Saleemul Huq, a top expert on climate change said, tackling climate change is not a matter of protecting the interests of the US (or any other country) against other countries (which is what normally happens in global diplomacy), but rather a challenge to this generation of global leaders who will be answerable to their children and grandchildren rather than to their current electorates.
Most of the people, and some leaders, in the rest of the world had realised this already and are beginning to take significant actions but the US has been a major laggard, because of its peculiar anti-science politics.
This underscores a problem that South Asia and other flood-prone regions have grappled with for generations. Regular, small-scale floods are a vital aspect of the ecosystem in lowland river areas: they can replenish nutrients in the soil that are essential for certain crops.
But as populations swell and urbanise, life amid floods becomes increasingly difficult.
"It's a blessing and a burden," said Azmat Ulla, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies country head in Bangladesh. "It's not just Bangladesh, it's a large part of Asia: South Asia, Southeast Asia. How to live with floods?"
Disaster risk reduction is a key part of that balance. Risk reduction represents a sweeping set of priorities - from smarter land use and urban planning that takes environmental realities into account, to helping populations become better prepared for hazards, to enabling more effective response and recovery efforts.
A noted expert Kazi Mizanur Rahman told a roundtable that the frequency and severity of various hazards increased over the last few decades because of the changes in climate. The main reason for flooding in Bangladesh is not only the heavy rainfall within the country, but also other issues, including - snow-melt from the upstream countries, deforestation, shrinking of the rivers' capacity, building of dams in the upstream for irrigation and many more. One of the World Bank's studies shows that among various types of hazards, the damage caused by flood is 23 per cent while it is 19 per cent by cyclone and 15 per cent by landslide. In Bangladesh, early warning is more prompt and precise for cyclone, but not strong enough for floods.
But then the country's disaster management regulatory framework is very strong. The Disaster Management Act2015 agrees that we should ensure the warning through accessible language for dissemination and should coordinate with neighbouring countries. Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan pointed "forecasts are released through emails and website, there is scope for improvement".
But on the ground, there are very human reasons why even well-designed early warning systems can fail.
For some, leaving is a luxury
When researcher Sonja Ayeb-Karlsson, a project manager with the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security, interviewed survivors of 2007's Cyclone Sidr in coastal Bangladesh, one thing became abundantly clear: some people did not evacuate, even though early warning systems had been activated.
For some, cyclone shelters were too far away, or they feared they might be full and chose to try and protect their possessions instead. Others told her they received SMS warnings - but couldn't read them.