FLOODS

Floods have become an almost regular annual feature in India. We read reports like the Brahmaputra, the Ganga, the Jamuna, the Narmada, the Tapi and the other small rivers getting flooded almost every year.

Floods may be caused by excessive rainfall in foe catchment area of a river, by earthquake, by breach in a dam. In,North India floods are caused even in summer by the melting of the snow in the Himalayas.

Floods take a heavy toll of life and property. They flood vast areas of land. Low-lying areas are completely submerged in water. People lose all their belongings and become homeless. Standing crop and goods lying in shops, warehouses and factories are destroyed. Roads, railway-lines and bridges are damaged. Means of communication are disrupted. Failure of electricity plunges vast areas into darkness.

People stranded in floods have to remain without food and water for days together.

Floods destroy the uppermost fertile layer of the earth and turn cultivable land barren. This long-term effect of the flood is far more damaging than the other short-term effects.

Even after the flood has receded, it leaves behind a trail of death and destruction. Fallen buildings, breached roads, rail lines and bridges, uprooted trees and telegraph poles, dead bodies of human beings and animals sunk in deep mud present a ghastly sight. Often epidemics like cholera and jaundice spread in the wake of the flood.

Fortunately modern means of transport and communication make it possible to provide quick relief to the victims of flood. Food, medicine and other essential things are air-dropped from helicopters to the people trapped in the flood. Government and voluntary charitable agencies come forward to help and rescue the victims.

Though timely and efficient relief measures go a long way towards mitigating hardships caused to the people by the flood, government should devise long-term measures to prevent the recurrence of floods. These measures include building up of dams, canals and embankments, walls, growing more trees and afforestation.

Government and voluntary agencies should also devise a permanent relief machinery which would provide instant relief to the victims of flood.