Cold wave in Uttarakhand It was on 10th December, 2014 that I was in Kempty near Mussoorie where the department was conducting a search and rescue course for Fire and Emergency Services personnel. The weather was pleasant and while discussing the same with Mr. S.P. Chamoli of Himalayan Adventure Institute where the course was being organised, I was told that the weather was relatively warm this year. It was at the same time stressed that previously it used to snow around Christmas but lately the weather has started to shift and these days it generally snows around February. Mr. Chamoli was quick to attribute the same to climate change. He was convinced that due to this the timing of the seasons was changing. Just a couple of days after that weather changed suddenly and there was heavy snowfall in most areas in the higher reaches of the state on 14th and 15th December, 2014. The snowfall was abnormally heavy in Kumaun region where even the low-lying areas like Garur and Bageshwar received particularly heavy snowfall. On 16th December, 2014 I was discussing the same with Dr. R.K. Dave, Consultant at NDMA who had come over to Haridwar in connection with the workshop on Crowd Management. He was convincingly confident that the same is attributed to climate change. Something unpredictable happening with the weather system, to him was the clue for attributing the same to climate change. I was a bit confused. I failed to understand if everything happening around us could really be attributed to climate change. To add to the confusion were news reports citing different number of human casualties attributed to cold and the count in some newspapers soon surpassed 30. On contacting the districts the total death count could not even reach double digit; 04 in Nainital and 03 in Champawat. If the districts are to be believed the media was certainly exaggerating the impact. On enquiry I came to know that the overenthusiastic friends from the media were counting deaths of all sorts as being deaths related to cold conditions and were busy adding deaths caused by accidents in the same. It needs to be understood that it is highly technical an issue and detailed medical examination of the deceased is a precondition for ascertaining the exact cause of death. Disaster management system of the state was once again severely criticised by some of the newspapers; interestingly so for failing to restore roads, electricity and water. Before drawing any conclusion the media should have really analysed the cause of disruption of transport, water and electricity network due to cold. It needs to be appreciated that the problems caused by freezing and bursting together with ice formation are really complicated and cannot really be compared to disruption of services due to landslide. Moreover one needs to understand that even developed nations are not spared by snow and snowstorm related losses. According to reports from Munich Re winter storms caused US $ 1.9 billion in insured losses in 2013, up dramatically from US $ 38 million in 2012. From 1994 to 2013 winter storms resulted in about US $ 27 billion in insured catastrophe losses (in 2013 dollar terms), or more than US $ 1 billion a year on average, according to Property Claim Services (PCS). It really needs to be understood that snow and snowstorms create specific problems that are not easy to address and these still pose a major challenge even for most developed countries. For everyone in Uttarakhand, including the media it was really unexpected but then we were able to overcome it rather quickly. It would have been highly appreciated had the media invited people to celebrate Christmas and New Year in snowy Uttarakhand but then media is media. It was media that devastated the economy of disaster battered state in 2013 and once again the same trend is being observed.
Posted on: Fri, 19 Dec 2014 11:13:11 +0000
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