NEW DELHI: India is among the top vulnerable countries as Asia remained the world’s most disaster-hit region because of weather, climate and water-related hazards in 2023, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said on Tuesday while highlighting that extreme heat, severe floods, a glacial lake outburst flood devastated parts of India last year claiming around 2,500 lives.
The report placed India at below average in the composite category of early warning system. India ranked 14 out of 21 countries’ composite scores which calculate based on risk knowledge, observation and forecasting, warning, dissemination and preparedness to respond.
India has performed well on observation and forecasting and preparedness to respond index but zero report on risk knowledge and warning and dissemination.
“We have not done any economic analysis of our loss and damage to come up with any study to project our economic vulnerability,” said Dr Sreejith OP of India Meteorological Department and a lead author of India’s chapter of WMO report.
According to experts, India assesses its loss and damages based on the aftermath of the event and also based on media reports. Sreejith also pointed out India’s lack of last-mile connectivity to warn and disseminate early warning messages. “India is a diverse country with different languages lacking a robust dissemination system,” he said, adding that IMD has been working on it to iron out the flaws.
According to the report, only five out of 21 countries performed well on each indicator. It means people of these countries can access a multi-hazard early warning system. These five countries are Korea, Qatar, Japan, Kyrgyzstan and Myanmar. In 2023, various parts of the country experienced extreme weather events like extremely heavy rainfall, floods, landslide, lightning, thunderstorm, heat wave, snowfall, cold wave and hailstorm, among others, which caused about 2450 deaths, out of which more than 1330 were due to lightning and thunderstorm.
The annual mean land surface air temperature average over India during 2023 was +0.65°C above the long-term average (period 1981-2010). The year 2023 was the second warmest year on record after 2016 since nationwide records commenced in 1901. In 2023, there were 6 cyclones formed over the north Indian Ocean. Of these, 3 were Extremely Severe Cyclonic Storm “Mocha”, “Biparjoy” and “Tej”, two were Severe Cyclonic Storm “Michaung” and Midhili, one was Very Severe Cyclonic Storm “Hamoon”. Of these, 4 cyclones, viz. Mocha, Hamoon, Midhili, and Michaung, formed over the Bay of Bengal & two cyclones, namely Biparjoy and Tej, over the Arabian Sea.
In addition to it, there was below the normal rainfall observed in both during southwest monsoon and northeast monsoon season in 2023. Moreover, a significant glacial lake outburst flood originating in South Lhonak in North Sikkim led to the catastrophic collapse of the Teesta III hydroelectric dam, causing widespread devastation downstream.
According to the National Emergency Response Centre of India (NDMI), there were over 100 deaths and over 70 people went missing.