Friday, July 29, 2005

Natural Disasters & India & The Mystery of 26

January 26, 2001 - Bhuj earthquake (Loss of lives : Thousands)
December 26, 2004 - Indian Ocean Tsunami (Loss of lives : Hundreds of Thousands)
July 26, 2005 - Heaviest rainfall in Mumbai (Loss of lives : Hundreds)

2 comments:

VJ said...

An amazing observation Vimal! Talk about coincidence...

Is this because 8 (2+6) is considered an unlucky number or is because is 2 times 13 or is it something else? However - its such a pity that these Natural disasters keep hitting India..well any country for that matter.

Now - could the number of deaths have been reduced had there been better infrastructure or better flood warning system?

vimal said...

I'm sure a country like India do have infrastructure and warning system. But only in paper. I don't think they are properly implemented or maintained on the ground.

You see the problem in India is, we always react. We are not proactive. Even after something like Tsunami happened, we haven't learned much.

In Richmond, last year we had a similar situation from Tropical Storm Gaston. Few parts of city was under feets of water. But It was all clear the next day. And most importantly, there was heavy property damage. But the human casualty was very less.

The rescue also is an important thing. From what I read in news websites it looks like the mumbai police were not of much help in most cases to the public.

Reducing the number of deaths...hmmm...as long as we have people living in slums in low grounds...as long as we have people living in huts...I doubt it.