JOIN USMonsoon amidst COVID-19, Kerala keeps fingers crossed
Amidst the crisis over COVID-19, Kerala is keeping fingers crossed as yet another monsoon is in the offing.
Kerala witnessed massive destruction in the last two monsoons, claiming 433 lives in 2018 and 104 in 2019.
With experts warning of excessive rainfall during this monsoon also, Kerala is gearing up to face yet another calamity by enhancing the weather alert systems and initiating a plan for relief camps by following the social distancing and quarantine norms.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said that the state was facing a major challenge as weather experts predict the chances for excessive rainfall during this monsoon also, amidst the high caution prevailing over COVID-19.
Apart from initiating flood mitigation measures like clearing weeds and garbage from rivers and drains, the state government also initiated plans for setting up relief camps, taking into consideration the prolonging COVID-19 threats. The state is planning to have four types of relief camps; general camps, camps for aged people and those suffering from diseases, camps for those with COVID-19 symptoms and camps for those in home quarantine in connection with COVID-19.
At present over 60,000 persons are in home quarantine in Kerala and the figures and increasing drastically with arrival of hundreds of persons from other states and countries.
In order to enhance the weather alert systems, the Kerala Disaster Management Authority have decided to seek service of private weather agencies namely, Skymet, IBM Weather Company, Earth Networks and Windy. While this raised many eye brows, government justified the decision citing inordinate delay on the part of India Meteorological Department in setting up automated weather stations.
Even as the state witnessed around 420 landslides over the last two years and unauthorised encroachments and human interventions in catchment areas were found to be the key reasons, not effective calamity mitigation steps have been initiated so far. Rehabilitation of the landslide affected were also progressing in snail's pace. A series of queries made by opposition MLAs in the last session of the Assembly in March regarding the relief measures and assistance to the calamity hit remained unanswered. Resettlement plans for places like Puthumala in Wayanad that witnessed major landslide was getting delayed owing to hurdles in land acquisition and now due to COVID-19.