Saturday, June 14, 2014

Freak tidal waves...global warming in action?!

The monsoon is here!  Well, sort of.  It was officially supposed to arrive in the city on Tuesday and, four days later, we have had some showers but it has been rather lacklustre so far.  The experts are predicting a light monsoon this year, which is good from a practical perspective but worrying given the existing water shortages in the city and potential for drought in rural areas.

Although the rain has been light, a separate watery phenomenon hit Mumbai on Thursday which was extremely bizarre.  With no warning, a 4.5m tidal wave came in on Thursday lunchtime which caused minor chaos, waterlogging coastal parts of the city and washing tonnes of rubbish inland. 

On the coast of Mumbai on Thursday

I have several colleagues who were born and brought up in Mumbai who were astonished.  The city is expected to flood in the monsoon, but the rain hadn't arrived on Thursday.  The flooding was purely owing to high tide and a cyclonic storm miles out in the Arabian Sea.  No one seemed to remember anything like this happening before, and we couldn't believe the pictures being published online.

The water had receded by Thursday evening when I travelled south for a stand-up comedy show, including driving over the Bandra-Worli sealink (don't worry, this was perfectly safe!).  The sealink bridge usually stands a long way above the water but, on Thursday, huge waves were surging up to just beneath the level of the bridge.  It was awesome, and quite terrifying.  Whilst I was safely in the car, hoards of locals were enjoying standing on the coastal wall with the waves crashing close to them.  This, in my view, is crazy behaviour.  The water is extremely powerful, and also filthy, but they seemed to be enjoying themselves.

A sobering thought is that hundreds of shanty homes along the coast were washed away.  This was noted in the newspaper reports but now, two days on, is old and forgotten news.  Those who lost their homes will have few possessions and must now be looking for somewhere else to set up as quickly as possible, before the rains arrive in force.

According to newspaper reports, there could be more of this to come during the next week whilst the tide remains high.  There are more pictures and detail about the events on the pages linked below.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/Freak-tidal-waves-flood-Mumbai-shoreline/articleshow/36451646.cms

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/slideshows/nation-world/freak-tidal-wave-hits-mumbai-city-dwellers-issued-warnings/slideshow/36489015.cms 

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