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Institute for Crisis, Disaster, and Risk Management Crisis and Emergency Management Newsletter Website |
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December
2007
Volume 13
- Number 3 |
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Floods: My first experience of a Crisis Submitted by: Ashutosh Madhukar I’ve spent most of my childhood days in Gorakhpur,
a small town at the border of India and Nepal in the northern part of India.
The city itself was located in the flood plains of Ganges and other rivers
some of which originated in Nepal and carried a considerable amount of water
in them. It was my high school year and as it happens with all the children
of my age group I was also repeatedly reminded that this is the year which
will decide your career (Referring to high school exams, As in India what
you can study for the rest of your life depends upon what score do you get
in your High schools). Hence, I was studying pretty hard to score the maximum
in my terms. (Believe me getting good grades in the high school is considered
to be extremely important for many reasons and the pressure a child in India
undergoes to get them is huge). Halfway through the term in the months of
September and October, It started raining like hell and we experienced heavy
rains for a continuous period of 6-7 days. Almost all offices, schools and
colleges were struggling to remain open but the situation was still in control
if you dismiss the fact that the grocery items were being sold for more than
2-3 times their legitimate prices. The turning point came when our good neighbor’s
(Nepal) decided to open the flood gates of their dams without any warning
which resulted in overwhelming of the city’s levee system. I still remember
there were rumors that the levee has failed and the city will soon be flooded.
People started to flee. We also shifted some of our furniture to the second
floor of the house and started watching NEWS all day anxiously. Finally the
levee’s failed and I’m saying finally because the two day period starting
when Nepal opened its flood gates to the time when levee’s collapsed looked
like an eternity. Soon the word spread out, that these areas have been flooded
and he water is now approaching towards the city centre. Fortunately our
house was located in highlands in comparison to much of the city’s residential
area which got flooded so we were not inside the water but the flood had
completely cut off the city from the whole country. The supply line was severely
affected and the price of essential commodities was sky-rocketing. The government
was no where in the sight, there was no alerts, no warning, no information
available officially. Media was still the only credible source of information.
Finally the Indian Army stepped in and they started rescuing people, air
dropping food, water and essential commodities. Few days later, the flood
water also started to recede and slowly the whole city crawled back to normalcy.
The schools were still closed as though the water reseeded the debris and
sediments deposited by the flood were still there. It took the school authorities
another 15 days to get things in order and finally we were back to school.
What happened during all this was that we were left behind the schedule by
a month and with the most important exams of your life due in two months
it wasn’t a good situation to be in. Then started the real struggling phase
when I had to work extra hard to make up for that lost time. In the end the
hard work paid off and I came out of the exams with flying colors. Now when
I look back at those times I think it wasn’t too bad, the floods do taught
me some good lessons of life.
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