The heaviest rains in over a century caused massive flooding across the state of Tamil Nadu, in the Indian sub-continent, with more rain to come. More than a million people have been affected. Many thousands are homeless. Auto factories have closed and the airport is paralyzed. “There will be no respite,” said Laxman Singh Rathore. More than 180 people have died and more than 200 people critically injured in just one 24-hour period.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi blamed climate change for the deluge, as the Paris global climate talks just get under way. “We are feeling the impact of fast-paced climate change,” said Prime Minister Modi.
Here’s what happens when a city like Chennai, India’s fourth largest city is flooded with a deluge of water from torrential rains. Beside deaths and injuries, the hospital was running out of oxygen for patients and diesel for power generators. Mobile networks were down and food supplies running low.
Businesses closed, manufacturing stopped. Crops were destroyed. The airport closed and people were stranded with no idea when they would be able to fly. Hotels were packed and passengers could not find a place to stay. There was no place to go, and the misery just deepened. The air disruptions widen to other places. “The biggest challenge is to find a way to clear the inundated airport and main roads,” said Anurag Gupta at the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) in New Delhi.
“The entire state machinery has collapsed. Most officials are forced to sit at home. It’s a very frustrating situation,” said a home ministry official. Fishing boats were commandeered by the military to collect stranded residents. “The police want to help but there are no boats. We are trying not to panic,” said Ramana Goda, who took refuge at a police station after fleeing his home with his family overnight. The slow process of rescue and relief efforts added further to the misery.
The flooding was amplified by the El Nino effect, a warming of the eastern Pacific Ocean that has far-reaching climate effects.
“Everything in the world is in agitation. The signs of the times are ominous. Coming events cast their shadows before. The Spirit of God is withdrawing from the earth, and calamity follows calamity by sea and by land. There are tempests, earthquakes, fires, floods, murders of every grade. Who can read the future? Where is security? There is assurance in nothing that is human or earthly.” Desire of Ages, page 636
“While appearing to the children of men as a great physician who can heal all their maladies, he will bring disease and disaster, until populous cities are reduced to ruin and desolation. Even now he is at work. In accidents and calamities by sea and by land, in great conflagrations, in fierce tornadoes and terrific hailstorms, in tempests, floods, cyclones, tidal waves, and earthquakes, in every place and in a thousand forms, Satan is exercising his power. He sweeps away the ripening harvest, and famine and distress follow. He imparts to the air a deadly taint, and thousands perish by the pestilence. These visitations are to become more and more frequent and disastrous. Destruction will be upon both man and beast.” Great Controversy, page 589.
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