Drought Threatens Another Disaster in Cyclone-Ravaged India

[Excerpted from DisasterRelief, 26 Apr 2000, Written by Stephanie Kriner]

.... First there was the cyclone, which battered Orissa on October 29, with winds up to 155 mph and caused massive waves to crash into the coast, leaving some 10,000 people dead. Now Orissa and four other western states — Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh — are suffering the country's worst drought in decades.

Despite warnings of a looming famine, media reports say that there have been conflicting accounts of the severity of the crisis. Livestock have died as pasturelands dry and thousands have been reported to have fled their villages in search of food and water. Aid groups say that in some areas, government supplies of water are only available every few days, and in other areas, tap water is available just 15 to 20 minutes a day. But so far, no human deaths have been attributed to the drought, and Indian officials claim that the situation is under control.

However, media accounts describe people who trek for hours in search of drinking water. Others clamber in nearly dry wells to collect the last drops of water from the bottom. In one town, villagers are digging a trench to capture any rain that may fall. "There is no water. Water is available only once every 10 to 15 days. Cattle are dying," one woman told Reuters. "Villagers are migrating to other places. There is no food grain."

.... The drought is the worst to hit Gujarat in 100 years. Sixteen of its 27 districts are affected and 26 of Rajasthan's 32 districts are affected. State officials said that all of the men in nearly 1,000 villages in western Rajasthan had fled to other regions in search of food and water for their families because their crops had failed for the second consecutive year. Women and children left behind are forced to walk miles for water.

.... Still, many people are afraid that the worst is yet to come in the even hotter months of May and June when temperatures average 48 degrees Celsius (118.4 degrees Fahrenheit). More fears have arisen over reports that rains during the coming four-month monsoon season would be less than average and that this season would mimic last year's when precipitation was normal but erratic, skipping some of the areas hit by drought this year. The monsoon season begins in mid June.

A state-run research agency, the Center for Mathematical Modeling and Computer Simulation has reported that India would receive about 789 mm of rainfall during the coming monsoon compared with 840 mm last year. India's weather bureau is expected to give its official monsoon forecast in the last week of May.

Whatever the outcome, this season's monsoon will determine the future of millions of farmers who depend on the rains for their livelihood. India receives about 80 percent of its rainfall from the southwest monsoon. About two-thirds of the country's nearly 1 billion people are farmers. The situation will be most desperate in Orissa State, where cropland already took a massive beating from the cyclone. ....