Floods in drought season: is this the future for parts of India? | Raghu Karnad

It is possible to be killed by floods in Mumbai, but not really to be surprised by them. On 29 August, the city was battered by a monsoon storm which left homes, highways and hospital floors submerged, and shut down the commuter railway which has to carry more people every day than live in Denmark. More than 20 people are dead: swept away or crushed as multi-storey buildings collapsed. Bodies are still washing ashore.

Instead of feeling surprise, though, Mumbai treated the deluge like an unwelcome guest who keeps coming by and trashing the place. The most unnerving collective flashback was to 26 July 2005. Ferocious rainfall that day turned the city into a lethal aquatic obstacle course, which 700 people did not survive. That year’s flood, like this one, was followed by a flood of assurances from elected leaders, and civic pledges to protect waterways and mangroves, and renewed attention to how a metropolis built largely on tidal estuary and marine “reclamations” could so easily return to the water.

The storm in Mumbai deposited 15% of the city’s annual rainfall in a single day

Related: 'Not a single thing was dry': Mumbai's residents count the cost of floods