After the floods...

August 2019, Maharashtra (and 7 other states) faced massive disaster. Normally, we expect monsoon to settle and hopes for stock markets to rising/industries pick up the pace. The heavy rains were not limited to just agricultural loss, it affected people dependent on the livelihood of many sectors. The cascading impact led to a slowdown in many parts of Maharashtra. We were able to reach some of the communities which were 100% affected by floods.  through this report, we tried to investigate the consequences of (our) actions and the ignorance of the system while accessing risks on the life of common.

The sequence of events in Sangli district and other places in Maharashtra:

25th July-4th August: 

Heavy rains predicted in area, flood alerts issued. Water levels in Koyna dam were 70-80%

Source: https://sandrp.in/2019/08/08/aug-2019-krishna-basin-floods-in-maharashtra-karnataka-how-dams-harming-rather-than-helping/

Till this time everything was normal and I heard everyone (and one of my dearest friends) saying “are 2005 la pani ala nai, atta kothe yetay” (Marathi to English - 2005 floods didn't wet my house, don't worry, it won’t rise now”

4th August - 8th August:

Water started rising above danger levels, people were informed. Though not significant relocations/migration observed.

Here is a map of the affected area. (BTW it's between 2 human-made dams, not really relevant to disaster, so you can ignore it. )

So we went on to find out what is water inflow in Almatti dam, which is receiving dam, according to KSNDMC, from June 2019 water inflow was 8,18,269 mcft, the outflow recorded on 29th August was 11,991 mcft. The massive reservoir was already filled up to 1703.99 ft by July 28, which means dam was already over 99.5% full even before the end of July, with almost two full months of monsoon to go. Even till July 27, the outflow from the dam was just 3045 cusecs. We couldn't/didn't want to dig more, but what I kept hearing on media & from local government official was  - “everything is under control”. We suspect one of the reasons for this large system failure was the gap in coordination and response by multiple government agencies.  

Till this time everything was normal (for most of the residents & government officials) and we heard everyone (and one of my dearest friends) saying “are 2005 la pani ala nai, atta kothe yetay” (English translation - 2005 floods didn't wet my house, don't worry it won’t rise now”

Many of our relatives & friends woke up on the fine morning of 7th August, and opens door, found all the vehicles under water, with no clue on preparedness they started moving their families through 3-4 feet of dirty water and some of them stayed in hopes (rather a confidence) of water draining down. With waters 100 mts away, people were knowingly not moving to safe places. Unfortunately, some villages went underwater overnight and the only wake up call they received was from animals indicating rising water levels.

8th August onwards:

These images being circulated in Sangli city, people were very confident and we kept hearing above line.

Soon, we started getting these images:

We were very surprised to see these images, as we kept hearing the wrong predictions of water rise based on floods in 2005 (Oh yes, this year it surpasses all the old records which wasn’t anticipated/acceptable for people!). 

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In 2 days, thousands of people started relocating to cities located to a higher level and nearby schools, city started looking like a refugee camp. So what went wrong in 2 days? Some pointers below may help you understand the situation:

1. The disaster management of the district and other 5 districts was supposed to be controlled at Sangli station. Which apparently went underwater in the first few days of flood. Helplines weren't working,
2. People were clearly ignorant - no further explanation. Think of 1000 possible irresponsible behavior you would do in such situations, all were displayed by people. I do not blame their ignorance as we are trained to depend on the system for rescue in every failure, 
3. When the water started rising, people started saving Money/Gold/TV & Vehicles. What about food & clothes?
4. People from villages forgot farms & locked animals and migrated to nearby towns. All those chained animals who could naturally swim and save themselves, died a torturous death by drowning. 
5. Military, NDRF & local volunteers did their part very well, beyond expectations. But lack of resources (Boats, maps or communication equipments) paralyzed them at an extent. 
6. Some allegations were being made against politicians using boats for tourism and illegal constructions in flood-prone zones, none of them can be proved but its really important for all of us, governments & activists to note down implications of such actions. After all, we all were responsible for this - I will link it to Climate Change & Human Actions/Mismanagement.

A lot can be listed, but let’s move on to what happened after floods?

Here is what we have seen after floods. This is the time water levels reduced:

1. 6 inches of dirt in homes and farms, which took 1 week for people to clean. Imaging water used for this

1. No food at home, fridge was floating above wooden beds which almost decomposed. 
2. Roads damaged, No rooftop left on some homes
3. Perished goods from shops (new wet clothes, groceries, stationery, medicines and whatever you can think of) thrown on roads.
4. Interestingly, all the groceries from the market yard were getting over as some organizations started buying them at massive rates. Thankfully we got groceries at reasonable rates. People were really supportive. Some shopkeepers were being reasonable and maintaining their way of usual business (sarcastic comment).
5. We found some discrepancies in overall approach of government agencies during disaster management. BTW, the government has over 200% of excess food reserves and yet, it reached late! Also, a significant amount of support is being provided to each district towards disaster planning. In some districts, this was returned as it was unutilized at the end of the year. 
6. Health conditions and number of deaths: According to government its only 40. As we don’t count people who passed away because of the inaccessibility of medical attention in their chronic illness, old people & people affected by flue/dengue/leptospirosis. 
7. And, the other living things on the planet? No records found!

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ISEF support activities during floods:

We, the team ISEF* along with some of the local NGOs, were able to identify a few locations which were 100% affected (this means water above roofs!). With the help of Donatekart.com - an online crowdfunding platform for raising resources and collected a sizable amount to support people in these areas. You can guess state of Schools/Balwadis, Government offices, livestock & Daily wage workers/homeless people. What happens to Income of people for next 2 months? 

Frankly, we were not happy with a lot of things on the ground & with limited resources, we were unable to reach to more in time! 

We packed and delivered approx 30 ton of goods to 4000+ beneficiaries.

Areas we covered: All the areas we distributed the support were not only 100% affected but we realized, the cost of this disaster was way higher in these areas. We saw people cleaning their homes for 3-4 days with a limited supply of water. Can’t relocate as basic facilities (electricity, water supply etc) wasn't available.

Image: Flood affected area & ISEF Support locations

Conditions of schools & other public services took a long time to restore, with a Mumbai based company we were able to distribute school kits to affected schools. 

Looking for answers to some pressing questions?

What happens after the floods when your city received sizable amounts to take measures against disasters, plan mitigation & prepare people? Who is responsible for all the lives which were threatened because of mismanagement? Why different government agencies don’t talk to each other? Why our metrological department and dam management systems are functioning are not in sync with each other? While our economy is so much focused on consumption, why we forget sustainability or resilience? Who is responsible for massive land use in red zone (flood-prone areas)?  Whose responsibility it is to be prepared for relief work and ensure support reaches in time?

So, to conclude our work, we all realized & most of us agreed that this wasn’t a man-made disaster, no government was responsible nor people. BTW below is map of 34 dams on Krishna River, not man-made!.

A sincere thanks to Donatekart, Pune Jagriti Group, Interactive Brokers and friends (including 3000 donors) for supporting us to raise financial contribution and relief support, without your help it was impossible. 

Team ISEF, Sangli, Maharashtra

Aditya Magdum, Amarjeet Patil, Ghanashyam Chendke, Rohan Patil, Ranjeet Patil, Swapnil Gramopathe, Shantanu Kodak, Niranjan Demanna & Other Family members  

https://indiasef.org/

In Association with

https://www.Donatekart.com