Floods in Bihar, Could the calamity have been avoided.
Natural calamity is uncalled and unpredictable disaster that brings a huge devastations of life and property. It has a great impact on psychology of human kind too. But human endeavor and determination has overcome the effects. Nevertheless, human activities have been responsible for the recurrent natural calamity. The human need and greed has led to the destruction of nature to an extent beyond expectation and control. Man's unending greed has started a chain of uncontrolled reaction of nature that has engulfed the entire world in terror unforeseen. There are many types of natural calamities like-----earthquake, tsunami, volcanic eruption, cyclones, flood etc. All are equally destructive in nature. Nature has its own way of taking revenge, to make the human realize that there has to be a limit of everything in this world.
The most recent catastrophe that occurred is the flood in Bihar. This has affected a large amount of people. Lakhs of people were displaced, lost their lives, children, relatives, house, cattle, land, earning and above all peace of mind. A large portion of the cultivable land was inundated by the flood water, leading to further worsening of the situation for the human kind. In my view this calamity could have been avoided or its impact could have been lessened. As the northern portion of Bihar has always been flood prone, so a permanent solution need to be sorted out to overcome it. Firstly , the desiltation work that have been on papers for long time need to be taken up seriously in Bihar for all the rivers. It has to be made a ground reality. May be a amount of work must have been done but this flood has shown that a small amount of it will never improve the situation to a greater extent.
Secondly, since large volume of water was released by Nepal, this could have been done in a proper way, were the loss could have been minimized. Since ,this is an international issue there could have been talks before such situation came. Both India and Nepal could have worked together and should have agreed on a constructive way out. According to the agreement the Indo-Nepal treaty1953, the agreement could have been renewed and the repair and the maintenance work of the barrage should have been under taken.
Thirdly, if at all the situation was inevitable then at least, affected area could have been evacuated before the water entered them. This could have reduced the losses to a greater extent and the work of evacuation could have been done properly. Fourthly, there is an ardent need for the construction of dam over river Kosi in Bihar, as it is going to solve the problems immensely, and also benefit the state and its people in many ways. It will economically uplift the situation of the people of Bihar.
With humankind moving at greater pace in technological advancement has not been able to predict such natural calamities, so we are vulnerable to such situations. Our advancement is still handicapped in front of nature. So its high time to realize our mistake and to walk hand in hand with nature and not with our greed, to save ourselves from destruction.
Parinita
