Geophysical Phenomena

Impact of Cyclones on Coastal and Inland Regions

Cyclones basically originate over the warm ocean waters and are normally associated with coastal destruction by means of storm surges and heavy rains brought about by strong winds. However, they do affect inland regions too, albeit through a series of indirect and secondary effects:

1. Flooding and Landslides: Cyclones moving into the interior lose wind energy but often unleash torrents of rain, leading to riverine and flash floods. This tends easily to cause an overflow of rivers and reservoirs and floods inland urban and agricultural regions away from the coastal areas. In the high grounds, these rains cause landslides which augment the risks to both lives and property.

2. Disturbance of Basic Amenities: Regular power supply was interrupted; Telecoms, water and a number of transport networks were also rendered non-operational in many regions of the country due to the cyclones. The rural areas normally do not have resistant infrastructure; therefore, outages last for a long time and the delay leads to prolongation of suffering of human beings as well as economic losses.

3. Agricultural Losses: Inland agricultural belts are exposed to strong winds and heavy rains that lead to crop and livestock losses, soil erosion, flooding, and direct damage to farmlands. Thus, it impacts food security, livelihood and the rural economy, especially in the peasants’, agricultural based economy.

4. Economic Impacts and Migration: They influence the unfavorable effects that are manifested in supply chain disruption and damaged infrastructure slow down the pace of economic activities in inland regions. In extreme cases, displacement of populations in affected areas can add to the stress in the urban centers as people move for shelter and to seek employment.

India’s Readiness to Natural Hazards

The NDMA and State Disaster Management Authorities have provided frameworks that have helped India prepare and prevent disaster for quite a while now, especially along the coasts with advance warning systems and evacuation plans, as well as shelters for cyclones. Inland places are nowhere close to being prepared though, as the issue lies in alerting populations in rural inland areas, that are left unaware and without resources to prepare. Inland infrastructure such as power, road connectivity, and water supply usually is not cyclone-resistant. The heavy storms disrupt the power supplies, road connectivity, and water supply systems usually which tend to get severely disrupted when heavy storms occur.

-Community Awareness and Training: Inland area disaster preparedness training and awareness programs are only conducted for vulnerable groups like farmers and rural communities, who also have very little knowledge of cyclone impacts.
Recap India has progressed in terms of preparedness for cyclones but has much-needed improvements inside in inland disaster response systems, infrastructure resilience, and community awareness before ensuring much broader national preparedness.