A deadly monsoon season has claimed at least 1,860 lives in India and Pakistan, with flash floods, landslides and inundated cities exposing the region’s growing vulnerability to climate-related disasters.
As the monsoon continues, heavy rains have left scenes of devastation across the subcontinent. A sudden downpour in the hilly Indian state of Uttarakhand washed away an entire village this month, while a cloudburst killed around 60 people in Jammu and Kashmir. Life in Mumbai, India’s financial hub, came to a standstill this week as roads turned into canals, and in Pakistan, the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province saw 180 deaths in a day.
Climate change is intensifying South Asia’s monsoon, a seasonal phenomenon that typically brings relief to farmers but increasingly carries severe consequences. Rising global temperatures are ramping up the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events such as floods, droughts, cyclones and heat waves.
READ MORE: At least 34 dead in India's northeast after heavy floods
With weeks of the monsoon season still remaining, the death toll could rise further. Rainfall in the country’s northwestern region has been 12 percent above normal so far, and the India Meteorological Department has predicted “heavy to very heavy” downpours at several locations this week.
India has reported 1,109 deaths since late May, while 759 people have died in Pakistan since June 26, according to official figures from the neighboring countries. Many victims drowned, while others perished in landslides or collapsed homes. In India alone, drowning accounted for 484 deaths and floods for 116, the data showed, while 50,000 houses have been damaged, affecting hundreds of thousands people.
Inadequate urban planning has compounded the crisis, with authorities struggling every year to manage the situation. Unregulated construction, poor maintenance of sewer systems and swelling populations have left many cities and towns vulnerable to flooding even when rainfall is not extreme, exposing chronic under-preparedness by local authorities.
In the five days to Wednesday, the Santacruz weather station in Mumbai recorded 875 millimeters (34.4 inches) of rain, compared with 382 millimeters during the entire month of August last year, according to IMD data.
READ MORE: 19 killed, 90 injured as hailstorm plays havoc in Pakistan
Mumbai is highly prone due to its coastal location. Past disasters, such as the catastrophic floods in 2005 that killed more than 400 people, have shown how fast the city’s roads, businesses, and neighborhoods can grind to a halt when heavy precipitation overwhelms drainage systems.
