Ominous Warning For Costal Cities Like Mumbai.

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Cyclone Nargis in Burma has left a trail of destruction and a massive death toll.

Some 95% of the homes in the city of Bogalay in the Irrawaddy delta were destroyed and most of its 190,000 residents are now homeless.

The toll: 22000+ people dead and 40000+ missing , is indeed massive and Shocking. Almost all of the deaths occurred in the Irrawaddy river delta region, where more were killed by the tidal wave than the cyclone itself, Minister for Relief and Resettlement Maung Maung Swe told reporters in Rangoon. “The wave was up to 12ft (3.5m) high and it swept away and inundated half the houses in low-lying villages,” he said. “They did not have anywhere to flee.”

Guess what was the primary reason for so much destruction ? Govt Apathy and Neglect ?

Yes and NO! it is mainly due to the DESTRUCTION OF MANGROVES ….source BBC

Mangroves at Revas

Try the Godrej’s Mangrove site for some quality info on mangroves.

The very recent Asian Tsunami has shown us the importance of mangroves to the local ecology. In Sri lanka, two people died in the settlement with dense mangrove and scrub forest, up to 6,000 people lost their lives in a nearby village without similar vegetation.

Coastal developments had resulted in mangroves, which act as a natural defence against storms, being lost at an alarming pace. The Main Culprits are Encroachment, Real Estate, Garbage dumping, Aquaculture and Prawn Fisheries.

Bangladesh has to a limited extent realized the perils of destroying the mangroves, but will others ?

Click on the photo for an enlarged shot of the Sunder bans (Image courtsy NASA)

At home in Mumbai there was a Cloudburst and there was much talked about aftereffect .. the flooding of the Mithi river and the Milan Subway by the media.

But have the Municipal Council and the State Govt (Pretty much all parties) learnt lessons from this ? or has political compulsion scored once more ? Read this damning article, Why Mumbai choked by Mr C Prabhu on the politics of it all. His theory is stark and very real. Mumbai is being strangulated.

The Central Govt or the Supreme Court (which was quite protective of the Delhi Ridge) aren’t helping either.

There is a blog that monitors Mangrove destruction called Mumbai mangroves and things are not looking good, just recently when i went to BKC i saw a motor able kacha road made in between mangroves in place of a a small kacha foot trail - right opposite NSE building. Soon i expect the mangroves to vanish there and slums take their place once sufficient debris has been dumped by the trucks.

Little has changed and the Mah DFgovt (whose minister was once jailed for contravening Supreme a court order) is just about to bail out all those corrupt officials in govt dept that in collusion with the politicians and builders built complexes in Pvt Forests under No development area.

The Rains are coming and with the kind of temperature swings and severe summer we faced, god knows what we have in store… This city is slowly dying .. God save this city !

Related posts : Plans to rid Mumbai of slums by 2015, Government officials used slum development funds to fatten their perks!