Mumbai: Commissioner of Mumbai City Iqbal Singh Chahal has made a scary prediction for the city, by saying that in 2050, most of the South Mumbai, including the Nariman Point business area and the State Mantalaya Secretariat will run under water levels.
Speaking at the launch of the Mumbai climate action plan and its website in the hands of Maharashtra Environment and Minister of Tourism Aaditya Thackeray on Friday, Chahal said about 70 percent of the environment A, B, C, C, and D in South Mumbai will be under water due to change climate.
He said that nature has given a warning, but if people do not “wake up” then the situation will change “dangerous”.
“Eighty percent of areas like Cuffe parade, Nariman Point and Mantalaya will be under water …
mean it will disappear,” he said.
Civil heads also said that it was a problem only 25-30 years since 2050 was not too far away.
“We get a warning from nature and if we don’t wake up, it will be a dangerous situation for the next 25 years.
And it will not only be the next generation but the current generation will also suffer,” Chahal warned.
He said that Mumbai was the first city in South Asia which was preparing a climate action plan and acted on it.
“Previously, we used to hear about climate change events such as melting glaciers, but did not directly affect us.
But now it has come to our door,” he added.
Chahal said that last year for the first time in 129 years, Typhoon (NersaTa) hit Mumbai and after that in the last 15 months, there were three cyclones.
After that, on August 5, 2020, around 5 to 5.5 feet of water accumulated in Nariman Point.
“There was no cyclone warning that day, but remembering the parameters, it was a typhoon,” Chahal said.
Highlighting that the city has witnessed several extreme weather conditions recently, he said that the city faced Tauktae’s typhoon in Mumbai and witnessed the rain of 214 mm on May 17, even though Monsoon arrived here on June 6 or June 7, Mumbai recorded 84 June Cent June rainfall and in July, 70 percent of the average rainfall of the month was received in just four days – from 17 to 20 July, he said.
Under the Mumbai (MCAP) climate action plan, data assessment has identified the most vulnerable fields and communities given increased climate uncertainty, said Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) in the release.
Data from all 37 BMC automatic weather stations (AWS) during the last 10 years show that, on average, Mumbai has seen heavy six, five days of very heavy rain, and four days of torrential rain per year.
And for all rainfall that occurs during the rainy season in Mumbai, every year, around 10 percent fall under heavy category, nine percent are very heavy, and six percent are very heavy.
According to the classification of the Indian Meteorology Department (IMD), daily rainfall from 64.5 mm to 115.5 mm was considered ‘heavy’, 115.6 mm to 204.4 mm ‘very heavy’ and more than 204.5mm.
“The four-year period between 2017 and 2020 has seen a stable increase in very heavy rainfall events.
This shows that the frequency of extreme weather events like that is increasing for Mumbai, especially for the past four years,” said Lubaina Rangwala.
, Director of Associate, WRI India Ross Center for sustainable cities.