Kerala floods 2018

People blamed many factors for the extensive floods and resulting damage but some natural calamities are simply unavoidable. The state received 2087.67 mm of rains this season when the floods started whereas the normal is 1606 mm. Rains haven’t stopped since then and all 35+ reservoirs had to open shutters at the same time to contain the flow. This is the largest rainfall in almost a century. The largest rainfall state ever received was in 1924 exceeding 3000 mm of rain which even washed away a mountain. So man made construction alone is not the cause for the destruction. Comparitively the Uttarakhand floods of 2013 that killed about 5400 people was only from 500 mm of rain. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.indiatoday.in/amp/india/sto...

Rescue and relief efforts are largely powered by volunteers with various government agencies. Social media is helping in a big way, however the ephemeral nature of posts make the deluge of information unmanageable for volunteers. Kerala is the most literate and have most of its working population outside. With a population of 300 million and tech savvy relatives and friends outside the state retweeting and sharing sos calls and relief resources, volunteers are inundated with duplicate and sometimes heavily outdated information. Scanning the feeds with content mostly as images and in Malayalam language with contain images and content, data collection is a huge challenge. Another challenge was identifying the location of victims. After the road signs and two storied houses were almost under water even sharing google map coordinates proved to be difficult to be useful. India does not have a standardized address system. Landmarks were under water too. So were mobile towers.

The state of Kerala known as Gods own country in India received 257% rainfall this year, the heaviest in a century. $2.7 billion in damages estimated. More than 300000 evacuated to relief camps and thousands are still stranded in flooded areas. More red alerts issues throughout the state. Cochin airport the 4th largest in the country is closed for more than 10 days. Details https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2018/08/18/asia...