New Delhi: Natural disasters, especially floods and cyclonic storms, are expected to force about 2.5 million people to be internally displaced in India in 2022. The International Displacement Monitoring Center, operated from Geneva, said this in a report. Last year in South Asia, 12.5 million people were internally displaced due to natural disasters and 90 percent of these people had to flee due to floods. According to the report, “Displacements due to floods occurred in all countries, but Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh were the most affected.
Most of the migration took place during the southwest monsoon between June and September. Last year, India and Bangladesh witnessed intense rains and floods even before the formal start of the monsoon season. Assam witnessed an outbreak of floods in May and the same region was flooded in June. Torrential rains in India in May caused rivers to overflow and floods in Bangladesh displaced some 5,500 people.
About 1.1 million people were internally displaced across South Asia last year due to cyclonic storms. According to the Centre, reports on disasters in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Pakistan are prepared only for medium to large-scale events. This means that minor disasters are not included in this, which together can increase the displacement figure.
Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar, in a report last year said that the frequency of weather-related disasters such as floods and heatwaves may increase manifold in the future due to climate change. According to the ‘Annual Statement on India’s Climate – 2022’ released by the India Meteorological Department, 2,227 casualties were reported in 2022 due to extreme rain or heatwave-like weather events. According to the data of the Meteorological Department, this number was 1,750 in 2021 and 1,338 in 2020.
