Is it a coincidence or evidence of a global pattern?
The monsoon season in India lasts from June to September each year.
Torrential downpours have lashed India’s western coast in recent days, leaving dozens missing near the financial capital of Mumbai and causing the worst floods in decades in the resort state of Goa and Maharashtra.
“People have lost virtually everything,” said Goa’s health minister, Vishwajit Rane, adding the state had not seen such heavy rains in half a century.
In Maharashtra, major rivers are at risk of bursting their banks. Some 90,000 people have been evacuated so far in the state.
Roxy Koll, a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, said the monsoon flooding was “unprecedented, but not unexpected”. He tweeted: “We already see a threefold rise in widespread extreme rains that cause floods across India.”
The climate crisis is making India’s monsoons stronger, according to a Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research report published in April that forecast dire consequences for food, farming and the economy affecting nearly a fifth of the world’s population.
India floods: rescuers search for survivors among mud and debris | India | The Guardian
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