When it rains it pours in this part of the country! The rains have assumed a pattern. A completely dry spell, or one that is moderate, unexpectedly turns into one where the region is facing torrents from the sky.
This is more evident during the morning and evening rush-hours, and especially so when the tiny-tots have to return home during the afternoon after school.
Hence I call it the ‘Executive Timings’ of the rains!
The meteorological department has also been as unpredictable as ever with its weather forecasts. This year too, the weather bureau had a tough time differentiating between the pre-monsoon and the actual onset of the season.
But then these days no one really knows when the monsoon commences and when exactly it ends. For that matter the term ‘unseasonal rains’ seems to have lost the enigma associated with them.
An overcast and brooding sky is no more a matter of concern. Weather anomalies in any part of the country invariably appear to bring in such climatic conditions with rains as an imminent knock-on effect.
Yellow, Orange and Red alerts as colour-coded and severe level warnings have actually become indicators of the helplessness of the authorities when it comes to threats posed by incessant rains.
The recent ban put on tourists visiting popular waterfall destinations in the state comes in the aftermath of the spate of accidents, some fatal, which have shown the reckless attitude of the visitors enjoying the breath-taking sights of the landscape resplendent in all its natural glory.
Cascades of water plummeting down from dizzy heights are indeed mesmerizing sights! But to their absolute horror many have realized that there couldn’t be anything more foolhardy than attempting to place oneself in a precarious position so as to click selfies with the falls in the backdrop.
The fad for swimming in gushing streams and ponds is a fondness nurtured by many. But the craziness shown for jumping into seasonal water bodies formed due to rains can only bring about disastrous results -- as many have learnt the hard way.
The penchant shown for courting disasters is that human trait which enables one to devise ways and means to hoodwink the authorities to attempt everything that is forbidden in pursuit of one’s suicidal ventures.
Incidents of deaths due to drowning in abandoned quarries filled with rainwater have time and again come to haunt authorities who have been rather dismissive about the matter.
Despite quite a few tragic accidents, over the last few years, Pernem’s unguarded laterite stone quarries continue to be open death traps.
As reports in a section of the local press suggest, even four years after four school students met a watery grave in a laterite stone quarry filled with rainwater, the authorities concerned have apparently not taken lessons from the incident and have failed to fence the abandoned ones in Pernem taluka.
Since then five youth including a Russian national have drowned in the laterite stone quarries. It is horrifying to note that till date no strict action has been initiated by the State government to fence these quarries.
With the monsoon having descended in the State in all its fury, heavy and incessant rains continue to wreak havoc in only the first week of its onset.
The newspapers are extensively covering the evidence of misery wrought by the relentless downpour the State has been experiencing the last few days.
It is however the usual stories of neglect and oversight by the concerned authorities in scrutinizing the public works tendered and executed which has led to the sorry state of affairs.
The Chandrayaan-3 as the third and most recent lunar exploration mission under Chandrayaan programme carries scientific instruments to study various aspects of the lunar surface.
Having discovered that the moon’s surface is covered with thousands of craters, it would instead have been a better proposition for the scientists at ISRO to send a study team to Goa to have a better understanding of the cratered surface of the moon before embarking on the mission.
The potholed-tops that thoroughfares in Goa have ‘metamorphosed’ into during the monsoon would have presented them a perfect case-study!
Reports about rains washing away recently laid roads become difficult to digest. No matter how bad the onslaught, if the roads cannot withstand one season of the wet spell, there is something drastically wrong in the way the government has set priorities for itself.
In Goa, just ten-minutes of heavy rain is enough to flood low-lying areas in the state.
Continuous rains in Margao over the past few days have created havoc, submerging vast peripheral areas, as the newly-built Western Bypass has been singled out as the probable cause for the increased flooding of the entire seven to eight-kilometre stretch and the low-lying areas of Nuvem, Seraulim, Benaulim and Navelim.
But the indolence of the government on this matter couldn’t have been more in evidence considering that it was more-or-less the same situation around the same time last year when fields and catchment areas all along the Western Bypass were left inundated and many houses were flooded as the drainage constructed along the wholesale fish market route proved inadequate for the rainwater to flow out.
Inspections by concerned legislators and officials ‘to take stock of the situation’ hardly merit any special mention as a permanent solution to prevent the perennial problem has hardly ever been thought of. An overdependence on short-term measures seems to be the new mantra while attempting to moderate the furies of nature.
One can understand the prudence shown in attending to emergencies arising out of harsh climatic conditions according to the severity of the threat. But when the government is adamant on not learning from past mistakes and allowing the issue to linger on without getting to the root of the problem, it is creating a difficult situation for itself, and the people.
