Mumbai, India’s largest city, is in danger of being wiped out by rising sea levels

Disha Humbardekar has lost count of how many times the water has penetrated the family’s simple home in Worli, Mumbai. Household items and furniture have been washed several times. About a year ago, her husband built a barrier at the entrance, a 40-centimeter-high threshold in an attempt to keep water bodies out.

– During the rainy season, when the water level is at its highest, it has become a constant concern. When the water rises, it passes quickly. I put the most important things in a bag so I can run quickly up the hill to the road, says Disha Humbardekar, 40, who sells home-cooked food in the area.

– The new threshold gives me a little more time, but I find it difficult to get used to it. I bump into him several times a day. When my husband gets up early to go fishing, I hear him roar when he kicks the door with his foot.

Disha Humbardekar lives in a house which is normally located a few tens of meters from the sea. The area is poor, the inhabitants live from fishing. What at first glance looks like piles of trash on the beach are sandbags that are meant to act as a protective wall.

– I have lived here all my life and I have followed the change of the sea. There has been more and more water and rapid changes. At the same time, the fish have gotten smaller and smaller. Now it’s an event where someone has a big catch, she says.

– Previously, two, three years passed between the worst storms and floods. Now it happens every year. And it has started to rain during the months that will be dry.

You just have to throw A quick look at the map to understand Bombay’s vulnerable location. The city is located on a promontory that stretches out into the Arabian Sea. 150 years ago, the area consisted of seven islands, but as the city grew, the islands were built together. As a result of climate change, water appears to be recovering from lost land.

The world’s ice and glaciers are melting faster than ever, leading the oceans to rise more than double what they did in the 20th century, when global sea levels rose 15 centimeters. According to the UN Climate Panel, it is now about 3.6 millimeters a year. It warns that the sea level can rise one meter until 2100.

Just over a year ago, it became clear that the situation in Bombay is worse than feared. At the time, a highly publicized study from American Climate Central showed that the relationship between current sea level and land was a joyous calculation. Satellite images had incorrectly counted bushes, trees, and sometimes buildings like the coastline.

With the new model In addition to Bombay, Bangkok, Shanghai, Alexandria, Basra, Dhaka and Ho Chi Minh are among the cities that are partly at risk of flooding at least a million people living along the coasts. once a year. However, the survey does not take into account protective dikes and other structures built for the purpose of keeping water out.

In Mumbai and other multi-million dollar Indian coastal cities such as Calcutta and Chennai, the report became a wake-up call. According to climate activist Debi Goenka, authorities must begin to act on the basis that the megacity ends under water.

– What is required is to plan a completely new city that can replace Bombay. In my opinion, it should be a good distance inland and high up, says Debi Goenka, who heads the Conservation Action Trust.

The architect Pankaj joshi writes in the Mumbai Mirror that with the future scenario that is painted, the authorities must stop closing their eyes. In 30 years, much of Bombay’s infrastructure will be under water. Power supply, water and sewage will be shut down, affecting human health and chances of survival.

“As things are now, we don’t have a chance to be successful in the city,” writes Pankaj Joshi, director of the Urban Design Research Institute in Bombay.

According to Pankaj Joshi, a first step is to stop all activities that damage the environment and impoverish coastal areas. Pankaj Joshi writes that the city must prepare for a massive evacuation of people from low-lying areas, but also to build breakwaters and install pumping stations and other facilities to quickly get rid of unwanted bodies of water. He warns that development has already started, not everything will suddenly change in 2050.

“There is no doubt that it is urgent. The alternative is to invest in a rowboat as life insurance,” writes Pankaj Joshi.

Bombay is the engine in the Indian economy. At the same time, more than ten million city dwellers live in slums. Often their simple houses are located near the water in places that are already risky and doomed. When authorities offer housing to slum dwellers in the north of the city, they are quickly replaced by new immigrants from the countryside. An endless stream of people flock to Mumbai in search of work and money to send to their families.

Laxmi Pralhad Kale lives in Koliwada, one of all the districts marked in red on the map of areas at risk of being submerged in 2050. She shows the old family house that is located on the pediment in front of a section of sheds built with sheets of metal and cement. The ceiling is gone and a broken table is on the floor. Everything in the room was washed away when the slum area was hit by a flood during the monsoon.

– I hang my clothes here, it’s the only thing the room can be used for. Everything disappeared, what bothers me the most is that the ration coupons for rice, flour and cooking oil disappeared. I had to ask the neighbors for help. My sister has given me new clothes.

After several severe floods in recent years, Hindu temples in the area have built a large gathering space at the highest point in the area where residents can move their belongings during the monsoon. Many also choose to sleep there.

Do you think it is possible to stay here in the future?

– I don’t know, but it doesn’t feel right. I often think of water in a way that I haven’t done before. I don’t know where we are going, but these are not problems that we can solve ourselves. I hope the government can do something to help us.

In addition to rising sea levels, the rise in extreme weather events is also linked to climate change. Mumbai has been hit by the heaviest monsoon rains of the past two summers since the 1950s, with 60 percent more rainfall than a normal year. This has caused repeated flooding and has stopped public transport. Large sums of property have been destroyed.