Caritas India offers climate change survival classes

Jun 22, 2018

By Umar Manzoor Shah
As India continues to be struck by natural disasters and extreme weather conditions, a church group is pitching in with others to help prepare villagers for when calamity strikes.

Since April, dust storms and rains across the northern and eastern part of the country have killed 278 people, 223 of them in the first fortnight of May.

In fact from 2005-2014, natural disasters have claimed the lives of 2,200 people in the country and caused an estimated economic loss of about US$10 billion, government figures show.

Freak weather breakouts are believed to be increasing due to climate change and rapid industrialisation, experts said at a conference in New Delhi on May 19.

Federal Home Secretary Rajiv Gauba said the government organized the meeting to stress the importance of minimizing risk and losses in the face of such disasters as all 29 states have been told to prepare for the worst.

“We have to upgrade our level of preparedness through better weather forecasting, by conducting mock drills and with improved management of resources,” he said during the daylong conference.

“Through continued efforts over the last several years we have managed to reduce the impact of natural disasters, but there is still room for improvement,” Gauba added.

Even before the government began expressing its concern, Caritas India, the local arm of the Church’s international social service, has been working in villages to warn people what to expect and how to deal with certain eventualities, said its spokesperson Anjan Bag. --ucanews.com(used with permission)