At least 17 people were confirmed dead and more than 100 are missing
\n NEW DELHI
\nDozens of people were reported dead or missing on Saturday after heavy rainfall and flash floods hit the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. Environmentalists say deforestation and excessive development are exacerbating the effects of extreme weather driven by climate change.
\nLocal media reports said tens of thousands of people were evacuated to makeshift shelters in Chittoor, Kadapa, Nellore and Anantapur districts in the state\u2019s southern Rayalaseema region that have been hit by intense torrents since Thursday.
\nAt least 17 people were confirmed dead and more than 100 are missing. Navy personnel and seven teams of the National Disaster Response Force and the State Disaster Response Force have been deployed in rescue operations.
\nA DRF spokesperson said three districts, Chittoor, Tirupati and Kadapa, were severely hit. More than 100 villages in the Kadapa district are under water.
\n\u201cVery heavy rainfall in the range of 180 to 200 millimeters took place in the affected areas within 24 hours,\u201d R. K. Jenamani of the Indian Meteorological Department said.
\n\u201cThe severity of rainfall is increasing but at the same time there is no place for water to escape.\u201d
\nHimanshu Thakkar, who studies rainfall patterns in India, said that whether rainfall will turn into disaster or not is \u201cmajorly influenced by the way we are dealing with the river basins, the catchments.\u201d
\n\u201cThere is an increasing degradation of catchment and deforestation is happening. The local water system which used to help harvest the rain and recharge ground water \u2014 those systems are getting systematically degraded,\u201d the Delhi-based environmentalist at South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People said. He added it was unfortunate that despite authorities\u2019 forecasts for Andhra Pradesh the disaster took place.
\n\u201cThe Rayalaseema region of Andhra Pradesh is one of the driest areas of India,\u201d Thakkar said. Had we prepared, this rainfall could have been a boon.\u201d
\nFlooding in Andhra Pradesh comes after extreme weather disrupted life and caused heavy damage in another South Indian state.
\nActivities in Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu, were brought to a halt earlier this week after heavy rainfall and floods. Environmentalists say that while rainfall frequency has been disrupted by climate change, what aggravates its effects, leading to huge damage in the region, is rampant development. Environmentalist Nityanand Jayaraman, who works in Chennai, said \u201cgrowth and development have destabilized the environment and degraded the land.\u201d
\n\u201cWhat we call development is the degradation of land,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cEarlier the total rainfall used to be spread over a number of days, whereas now the number of rainy days has shrunk. Earlier there used to be 30 to 35 days of rain but now it has shrunk to 10 to 15 days in the entire northeast monsoon.
\nThis is one difference because of mainly climate change,\u201d said Prof. S. Janakarajan of the Madras Institute of Development Studies in Chennai.
\nThe crisis, however, is due to the region\u2019s growing population density.
\n\u201cIn 2011, there used to be 26,000 people per square kilometer, now there is easily 35,000 to 36,000 people per square kilometer. When the population density is going up, per capita drain space is declining and causes flood.\u201d
\nHe added that the \u201cway out\u201d of the flood situation is the \u201cretrieval of micro drains and rivers and the reduction of population density.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At least 17 people were confirmed dead and more than 100 are missing NEW DELHI Dozens of people were reported dead or missing on Saturday after heavy rainfall and flash floods hit the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. Environmentalists say deforestation and excessive development are exacerbating the effects of extreme weather driven by climate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":228763,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[483,612,504,611],"class_list":{"0":"post-228750","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-dead","9":"tag-floods","10":"tag-missing","11":"tag-southern-india"},"yoast_head":"\n