This is reported to have happened on 9th Monday nite, we got to hear about it on Wednesday – a small portion of the Coonoor Kotagiri road above Naduhatty caved in triggering a landslide gathering mass on due course, it had strangely detoured on its path as it forged down creating drag corridor thru the village around 4 to 5 house and a public toilet have been completely washed away with on aged women as causality by the look of it – the village appears more ravaged and gorily inflicted upon. The far flung theories going around varies from a cloud bursts, ground water currents of Rallia Dam gushing out to mild tremors, though there is a general grimness and qualm in the face of the villagers I was over awed by the indomitable spirit of the Badugahospitality even in this times of distress the old Ayya (elderly men) of the village took to a total stranger of me around and insisted in having tea, describing of the freak rains that he hasn’t seen in all of his age (75) managing with out power water for more then a week now, it was heartening sight. The community kitchen was serving hot teas and food solely for visitors, volunteers from the neighboring villages.
In the aftermath of the walloping rains that ravaged Nilgiris, I woke up every day to unassuming news of several lives lost around me the initial response to these fatalities relates to sensitized empathy. But yesterday I went around few places that where annihilated by the rains, it was heartening to see the extant of damage meted out by the natures fury, though I did see the images of these places flashed in the media before, the reality did prick a lot. Apart from loss of lives there have been extensive damages to properties, roads, retaining walls, embankments and farming lands. The KettiValley recorded 82 cm of rains in a single day record for Nilgiris and Tamil Nadu ( the previous recorded highest downpour was in Cuddalore in 1947 for 57 cm). All put together Nilgiris should have yielded something around 700 cm to 900 cm of rains from 6th evening to 9th morning.
Ooty’s main arterial roads from Kotagiri and Coonoor side are still disengaged, with several massive landslides reported on the Coonoor Mettupalyam road as well – It should take more then a month or so to revive these roads, this apart there are several service roads around Nilgiris that have seen multiple landslides that to has to be restored.
Now priming upon these devastations all I can sum up is that these devastation is more of made then happened, If the cause and effect is to be found the obvious fact is here for all to see, as most of the fatalities have happened due to unplanned constructions or in the Improvised Colonies on the steep face of valley’s structured without proper foundation, retaining wall or facilitating proper drainage of water.
On the depression induced rain front not that we have experienced something similar in the past , there have been depressions homing in to Nilgiri ranges and the seasonal north east monsoon lashing out but the severity and the magnitude of this scale has been long since heard of (if I can draw parallel it was way back in 1978). Obviously the blame game or finger pointing towards the global warming is natural, but as a phenomena it is rather strange pattern which has been occurring for past couple of years now of frequent depression in the oceans surrounding the peninsula which makes you conclude pointing to the el ninos
The world is now on track to experience more catastrophic damages from climate change than in the worst-case scenario forecast by international experts, scientists have warned. The research, published in a prestigious US science journal, shows that between 2000 and 2004 the rate of increase in global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels was three times greater than in the 1990s. That is faster than even the worst-case scenario modelled by the world's leading scientists in the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports, published over recent months, because the updated emissions figures were not available in time to be included. We keep shying away from the thought running in us – do these things affect US?
Humm Nature has shed its inhabitation
PS: I had been wanting to update my blog for long time now but while awayed my days in virtual oblivion , as it stands justified it would have been much better to have stayed way rather then.
It is an introspective
journey,
blossomed thru my iris
that filled
Nilgiris of every nook
and corners I roamed,
a metamorphosis that
made me feel for
the every feeble grass
blades that vanished
from the rolling meadows
that made of
my Nilgiris,
grandeurs of it is ranges,
the blue plumage of their
mountains
defaced in reckless irony
now where will my Thar go?
a humble yearning that made
me divulge in climate change,
conservation et al
thus
bringing forth a desire,
A burning desire! asking ME
and every one of
YOU?
WHY
WHY shouldn’t
NILGIRIS be SAVED?
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