Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Friday inaugurated IFLOWS-Mumbai, a state-of-the-art flood warning system developed for the city. “The flood management system is a boon for the city and it will be helpful in saving Mumbai,” Mr. Thackeray said via videoconferencing after the launch.
Dr. Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare, Science and Technology, and Earth Sciences, who was present at the launch, said the system will help the people of Mumbai in a “big way” as it can predict floods. The Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) has developed the system with in-house expertise and coordination with the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).
The Union minister said, “IFLOWS-Mumbai will enhance the resilience of the city by providing early warning for flooding, especially during high rainfall events and cyclones. Using this, it will be possible to have an estimate of the flood inundation three days in advance, along with immediate weather updates.”
The Union Minister said the system was “one of the most advanced” ones and will help the city, which has been experiencing floods with increasing periodicity. “The hi-tech system will predict floods before they occur, therefore enabling Mumbaikars to take due precautions in advance. Mumbai floods, especially the ones in 2005 and 2017, are etched in everyone’s memory. This highly-advanced flood warning system will help the people of Mumbai in a big way. A similar system was already developed by the MoES and is in operation in Chennai,” he said.
“In the 2004 tsunami, we lost lakhs of lives, in the absence of an early warning system. But now, India has developed an early tsunami warning system for the whole world and UNESCO has asked India to help other countries in early tsunami warning,” the minister said.
Mr. Thackeray said the State government was able to shift people to safer locations when Cyclone Nisarga made landfall near Alibaug in Raigad district last week as Maharashtra had received warnings about the cyclonic storm two to three days in advance. He said, “Hence, there was hardly any loss of human life.”
Mr. Thackeray said some areas in Mumbai are below the sea level and they are flooded during the high tide. “Therefore since 2005, several pumping stations have been built in the city, which stops ingress of water and also pumps it out of the city,” he said. On July 26, 2005, Mumbai witnessed one of its worst floods, receiving 944 mm of rainfall in a day.
‘Need Doppler radars’
He also stressed the need to for four Doppler radars in the city. He said the BMC was the first civic body in the country to build its own molecular lab after a leptospirosis outbreak in the city. In a lighter vein, Mr. Thackeray told Mr. Harsh Vardhan, “Like this system, give us early warning about approaching political storms.”
