Live-Mint/Hindustan Times, HT Media Limited

An analysis by researchers from the India Meteorological Department has indicated increased disaster potential for flooding over central India, where the intensity and frequency of rainfall have been increasing. The vulnerability to rainfall is also higher as more people are living in low-lying areas and land development is changing drainage patterns.

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has been working with local health departments to develop heat action plans and recommending measures to tackle heat stress. The number of heat-related deaths has fallen to almost a fifth between 2016 and 2017.

The Chandigarh-based Snow and Avalanche Study Establishment (SASE) is developing technology that will provide real-time prediction before an avalanche is triggered. The Wireless Sensor Technology (WST) will gather information from remote locations, which will ensure uninterrupted data streaming to base station on a near realtime basis.

Odisha will in April become the first Indian state to have an early warning system in place for natural disasters such as cyclones and tsunami for people living along its coast. Disaster alerts will be issued through sirens from 122 towers.

In a world where disasters cost the global economy $520 billion every year and push 24 million people into poverty, it has never been more important to move from managing disasters to managing the risks which drive them. India’s advocacy for adoption and implementation of the Sendai Framework will bear fruit in saved lives, secure livelihoods and a better quality of life for all.

Due to high land prices in India's cities, the flood plains are accounted for in the cities' blueprints and inhabited despite the risks that come with living there. In Mumbai, the sewage system is insufficient for dealing with the heavy concentrated rains. Environmentalists are calling for restoring flood plains and removing concrete retaining walls along the rivers.

Indian cities are unable to cope with the increasing intensity of extreme weather events. Factors such as inadequate stormwater networks, garbage obstructing stormwater drains, and changing urban land use, result in infrastructure that is incapable of dealing with heavy precipitation and flooding.

'The experts of the Indian National Institute of Disaster Management, who received warning of a bigger catastrophe in the unstable Himalayan region, correctly say that the DNA of disaster management has to change, the states need to develop a sound building code,' writes the author of an opinion piece in the Hindustan Times...