Hurricane Nisarg: Decades later, Hurricane Typhoon will hit Mumbai's shores on Today

The storm had brought the sea water into the city, the storm was roaring, the roofs of the churches were scattered in the air and heavy rocks were flying in the air like pebbles in the distance. Two thousand people were killed.

In this way a Portuguese historian describes one of the worst hurricanes in the history of Mumbai that hit the shores of Mumbai in May 1618. In the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, this western coastal city of India was hit by several hurricanes. Mumbai was flooded due to heavy rains in 2005 and just three years ago, in 2017, there were also heavy monsoon rains, but none of them were the result of hurricanes.

The fast-growing city, the capital of India's financial activities and film industry, has survived hurricanes in modern times.

Adam Sobel, a professor of environmental science at Columbia University, says Mumbai has not experienced a major hurricane since 1891.

But if the hurricane hits the west coast of India at a speed of 100 to 120 kmph on Wednesday, it will be a new record.

The Indian Meteorological Department is forecasting heavy rains, strong winds, tidal waves and hurricanes in the low-lying areas of Mumbai. According to the department, the hurricane could be as severe as Cyclone Amphan, which wreaked havoc in West Bengal about two weeks ago and killed 90 people.

Professor Sobel, who has researched Mumbai's ability to cope with hurricanes, says that in terms of the latest sequence, the hurricane, named Cyclone Nisarg, has reached its peak at a speed of 110 kmph. Will

Professor Sobel says the storm's forecast is bad for Mumbai, but the intensity forecast is better than the last 12 hours when some estimator models were predicting a further increase in intensity. May be

Therefore, the chances of the worst catastrophe are now greatly reduced. But a hurricane can still be dangerous, people must be prepared for it. And in the meantime, there is still time to change. Therefore, everyone in the area should constantly monitor the weather forecast. Mumbai has been placed in the 'yellow' category in terms of hazard classification, which ranges from "very heavy to very heavy in some areas.

According to experts, the thing that makes Mumbai so insecure is its densely populated area, in short, the concentration of a large population in one place. The low-lying areas of the city can be flooded very quickly in case of bad weather or hurricane. This time the city is facing the challenge of Kwid-19, the state of Maharashtra with Mumbai as its capital, where one-third of the affected patients have been registered across the state.

Amitabh Ghosh, a novelist on climate issues, says the number of hurricanes in the Arabian Sea has risen sharply over the past two decades. A 2012 research paper predicted a 46% increase in hurricanes in the Arabian Sea by the end of the century. And between 1998 and 2001, three hurricanes hit North Mumbai, killing 17,000 people.

In his book, The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Thinkable, Amitabh Ghosh wonders what will happen when a Category 4 or Category 5 hurricane hits Mumbai with a speed of 240 kmph. Or it could be more.

Earlier, when Mumbai was hit by a major hurricane, the total population of the city was less than one million, he writes. Today, it is the second largest municipal city in the world with a population of over 20 million.

He says such an increase in population in the city has also changed the environment of the city, so the weather here, which is no exception, has a severe effect on it, for example, the monsoon. Extreme levels of flood danger were announced in the city during the monsoon season.

According to Ghosh, in some special circumstances it has very devastating consequences.

The city had suffered such a catastrophe some time ago and there was no storm at that time.

In July 2005, Mumbai experienced one of the heaviest one-day rains in its history. 94.4 cm of rain was recorded in 14 hours that day.

Roads were flooded by the rains, all means of transportation and electricity were disrupted, and millions of lives were paralyzed. More than 500 people were swept away, buried in collapsed buildings, killed by lightning or suffocated in waterlogged vehicles.

Residents of the city are now praying that they will not have to face similar situations again