Author Amitav Ghosh is no doomsayer, but he finds the imminence of a disaster caused by climate change disconcerting.
Even more worrisome for him is the absence of awareness about its seriousness and the paucity of measures to quickly evacuate people in case of something like a cyclonic storm on the west coast.
The author, born in West Bengal, says if the Bay of Bengal was known for cyclones in the past, over the last 10 years, the western coast has been generating increasing cyclonic activity.
Kochi, with its coast and lagoon topography, makes for an interesting case. The Kochi of yore was on the inland side of the natural harbour.
It was the British who started constructing directly on the coast. When you have sea-level rise, as it’s rising now, at an alarming rate, what we also have going with it is that the Arabian Sea has been warming at a rate faster than the other parts of the ocean.
Thus the Arabian Sea, which never had cyclones in the past, began generating cyclones in the last 10 years. The way cyclones cause destruction is through storm surfs. Even a minor surge hitting Kochi could badly damage it, as you have more and more construction along the coastline.
Our ancestors had the common sense not to build on water, Mr. Ghosh, who was in town to launch the last instalment of his Ibis trilogy, Flood of Fire , told The Hindu in an interview.
A resident of New York, Mr. Ghosh was witness to the widespread destruction caused by super storm Sandy along the city coast. “What we need [in Kerala] is a tactical withdrawal policy,” he says. If the US government is facilitating, even paying people to withdraw from the coast in phases, Kerala with its good network of roads should have an evacuation plan for such a contingency. “It’s time they started thinking about such a plan.”
