Is Mumbai equipped to deal with a cyclone? Author Amitav Ghosh wants us to think and act. Over the last few years, the author has warned that India’s metros are at the risk of disaster due to climate change. In two tweets that he sent out in August 2017, Ghosh specifically underscored threats to our coastal cities.

Houston wasn’t evacuated because it wd have been a ‘nightmare’ to move 6.5 miln. Imagine evacuating Mumbai or Chennai, esp w/o proper plans. — Amitav Ghosh (@GhoshAmitav) August 28, 2017

S Mumbai esp is facing greater cyclone risk because of climate change. Evacuation & other resiliency plans urgently needed, to save lives. — Amitav Ghosh (@GhoshAmitav) August 28, 2017

It’s not the first time he has sounded us off on climate change. In his book, The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable (Penguin Random House India; buy here), warns of imminent threat to Mumbai. “…the uptick in cyclonic activity in the Arabian Sea is so recent that there has yet been no need for large scale evacuations on the subcontinent’s west coast. Whether such evacuations could be organized is an open question. Mumbai has been lucky not to have been hit by a major storm in more than a century…”

A cyclone moving in this direction would run straight into South Mumbai… A cyclone moving in this direction would run straight into South Mumbai…



Ghosh goes on to explain how in cities like Mumbai, town planning does not factor climate change and natural emergencies, and most disaster response is reactionary. “… the impact of a Category 4 or 5 cyclone will be very different from anything that Mumbai has experienced in living memory…the winds of cyclone will spare neither low or high; if anything the blast will be felt most keenly by those at higher elevations. Many of Mumbai’s tall buildings have large glass windows; few, if any, are reinforced. In a cyclone, these exposed expanses of glass will have to withstand not just hurricane-strength winds, but also flying debris.” The tin and sheet roofs of Mumbai’s informal settlements will turn into deadly projecticles, hurling everywhere including at these glass towers, he writes.

But what are the odds of such a situation? “The cyclones that have struck the west coast of India in the past have all travelled upward on a northeasterly track from the southward quadrant of the Arabian Sea. A cyclone moving in this direction would run straight into South Mumbai…” He presents a scenario where the water sweeps in upwards from the south, inundating Marine Drive, areas around the Gateway of India, the fishing docks before swamping key buildings and installations like the CST station, the RBI building and the Town Hall, before going on to inundate oil refineries and the nuclear facility at Bhabha Institute of Atomic Research.

Can’t say we were not warned.

Next, read: The 10 experiences that global warming will change forever