etch5895

I know this probably happens every year, but my heart still goes out to all the people hurt/killed/displaced by the monsoon flooding.

Best wishes.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20070475/

Yaatri

Yes, it does happen every year. I remember a famine one year and a flood the next. When I was in Mississippi during Katrina, people were wondering how it compared with the Tsunami and how the Thai, Indonesian, Sri Lankan and Indian people were coping with rebuilding their lives, I explained to them that although the extent of the devastation by Tsunami was orders of magnitudes larger than that of the hurricane, the lifestyle of the a vast majority people involved in the Tsunami was so simple and basic that it did not take them much to rebuild their lives. A few pots and pans, a mud hut and a few changes of clothes put them back in business. Here we had expensive and large homes full of expensive gadgets. I swear, when I went back to my apartment building in Mississippi, it smelled no better than it did in India by the railroad tracks near most urban centres.

oliver2002

My father comes from the ganges delta and it is a fact of life that the ganges and the various tributaries change course and flood the plains, especially in late summer/monsoon. This contributed signifantly to the prosperity of the area, similar to the nile delta before the asuan dam. Remember to plant rice you need a loooooot of water.

The problem that is rampant now is that due to overpopulation the people start building houses closer and closer to the waters, so when the floods come, the damage increases. Another factor is rampant deforestation up river, so the rains that come pretty much directly run into the rivers taking some precious top soil with them that causes silting down river, making the floods worse.

Nice analogy to the US: changes to the river change its flow too down river. All the people in the gulf coast now also build houses closer to the coast (for different reasons)

buzzlightyear

Happens every year
Mainly affects the states of Bihar and Assam.
we know how to live with it.
Our Army and other services provide good help and rescue and evacuation.
life will be back to normal shortly.
the situation is better handled here unlike in the USA where the life in Louisiana is still not normal.
Do not feel sorry for us.
if you really care give some funds to NGO's who work in that area

Yaatri

Katrina was really badly handled. Would you believed, my Director directed me "Mr Yaatri should seek help from his Church, his friends or FEMA", after I had already filed my application with FEMA and was still homeless. When I couldn't survive, I finally left the area in March 2006.