Year-ender 2024: Disasters aplenty, but are we ready for changing climate?

Yet another year passed by with nature raising red flags about the crises unfolding before our eyes and with disasters that could have been prevented

  Gone in a flash: Two villages were wiped off the map in Wayanad district, Kerala, after heavy rain triggered landslides on July 30. As the earth gave way, homes and families were buried under mud and debris, leaving over 300 dead and scores missing. Environmentalists pointed out that the region’s fragile ecology, erratic monsoon patterns, plantation farming, and a rising population density may have sparked the disaster — one of the worst the state has witnessed in recent years. Others underlined the absence of an integrated warning system for the Western Ghats. In the aftermath, a blame game ensued between the Centre and the Kerala government over the allocation of funds meant for  the rehabilitation of the victims 

 

  Raging storms: (Above) Torrential rain caused catastrophic floods in Spain, killing over 200 people in October. The phenomenon, which is called DANA locally, for ‘isolated high altitude depression’, triggered the deadliest storm in over five decades. A month later, the Philippines faced the wrath of super typhoon Man-Yi, which killed over 20 people, destroyed houses and damaged power lines 

  Capital chokes, yet again: A thick, toxic blanket of smog engulfed Delhi in mid-November, leaving residents gasping for breath. As visibility levels fell, hundreds of flights were diverted or cancelled, disrupting air traffic. Delhi, which grapples with woefully poor air quality year after year, has earned the dubious distinction of being the world’s most polluted city. Meanwhile, the Air Quality Index in Lahore, Pakistan, touched 1,900 — six times higher than the WHO’s limit. Pakistan blamed India for the spike in air pollution 

  Weather vagaries: (Anti-clockwise from above) In October, a study published in Nature Geoscience revealed vegetation on the Antarctic Peninsula had increased tenfold over the past four decades. With temperatures rising, the trend accelerated between 2016 and 2021, raising fears of an irreversible shift in the frosty continent’s ecology. The same month, satellites hovering over drought-affected parts of South America captured how the great Amazon basin had shrunk to record lows, upending its rich biodiversity, disrupting livelihoods, and endangering aquatic ecosystems. In Africa, two days of torrential downpour in November cut off tracts of the Sahara Desert in Morocco, flooding the region after five decades. And in West Asia, the desert region of Al-Jawf saw its first recorded snowfall when moisture-rich air over the Arabian Sea crossed paths with extreme hot winds, showering hail and rain 

  Collision on tracks: Ten persons lost their lives when a goods train hit the Sealdah-bound Kanchanjunga Express near New Jalpaiguri, West Bengal, on June 17. The probe report called for implementing the Kavach system  on the the busy route 

  The inferno: On July 24, a burning car pushed down a gully sparked California's largest wildfire of the year, which swallowed homes and gutted structures across hundreds of square kilometres. Dry grass, timber, and the wind carried the flames. Thousands of firefighters were pressed into action to contain the inferno that has come to be called Park Fire 

  Monsoon tragedies: On June 28, two hours of heavy downpour and gusty winds brought down a canopy over the forecourt at Terminal 1 of Delhi airport, crushing a man to death, injuring at least six and leaving several cars mangled. Less than a month later, on July 27, three UPSC aspirants drowned in the basement library of Delhi’s Rau's coaching centre, which got flooded with rainwater 

  Crushed:  A stampede at a religious gathering by a self-styled godman in a village in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh, resulted in the deaths of over 120 people on July 2. About 250,000 people had turned up for the event