The warning in the flash-flood

FOR most present-day urban dwellers, Monsoon showers have become a most dreaded prospect. This is on account of the current certainty of such showers inevitably generating flash-floods of an unsettling kind.

The homes and hearths of residents of low-lying areas in urban centres, in particular, are no longer safe from swirling flood waters unleashed by the shortest thunder showers, as is happening at present in some of Colombo's "residential" areas.

In respect of these increasing and heightening Monsoon-related vulnerabilities, at least, the once-yawning urban-rural divide seems to be diminishing. We in Sri Lanka are at present, once again, witnessing the devastating consequences of fierce Monsoonal downpours in our rural areas.

The deaths, displacements and other dire results caused by the current rains and floods in our provinces remain "hot" news and we hardly need to elaborate on the grave hardships these seasonal rains bring for the rural dweller.

Nor is urban flooding an entirely new phenomenon. However, what is new in the latter is the increasing frequency and facility with which it is now tending to occur.

The stark fact is that in unusually fierce Monsoonal downpours - as is the case now-flash-floods of more than "mini" proportions could be expected in some residential areas in even the metropolis.

Even in matters environmental and ecological, it would be fatal to overlook the "lessons of history".

The devastating deluge of 1992 which unleashed angry flood waters over almost the entire length and breadth of Colombo should have brought a measure of discretion and rationality to the country's urban development drive.

What is considered urban development, at break-neck speed without regard for environmental and spatial considerations, could trigger dire human consequences.

This is the lesson which urban developers and policy planners need to learn, which has been allowed to drift away in the wind. And they are not learning still. There is, no doubt, a construction and building boom in some areas in Sri Lanka, which is proving a great blight for the general populace.

The urban planners, the policy-makers and others concerned need to stop in their tracks and think awhile of the disastrous human and environmental consequences of unplanned development.

Booming skyscrapers and high-rise buildings are not necessarily synonymous with development. If this were so, skyscrapers would not be co-existing uncomfortably with slums within Colombo city.

Skyscrapers are in order as long as development occurs in an equitable manner and on a rational basis.

If not the construction boom would only trigger environmental and human disasters, on the scale of, for example, the "Great Deluge" of 1992. Besides, it would be a spur to inflation and rising living costs.

What compounds our weather-related vulnerabilities is the continuing lack of an environmental awareness among some sections of the public and even among those who are expected to administer the affairs of the people.

Thus, "keep the city clean" continues to be a cry which is largely ignored. Some sections simply could not care less for the physical environment and even more so for the moral environment.

For example, untidiness and mountains of garbage in street corners continue to be the order of the day. Cellophane is used with nary a care for the harm it brings.

Wholesome urban centres could only bloom at a price. The public must not only be increasingly conscientized on the conditions for a healthy environment but the "big stick" must be wielded on those who act in callous indifference towards environmental considerations.

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