A woman wades through a flooded street during monsoon rain in Mumbai, July 2019. Photo: PTI

Deluge and drought: A tale of two Indian cities – Worst floods in 14 years cripple Mumbai while Chennai thirsts for a drop of water – “It’s scary and the problem persists every year despite government promises”

2 July 2019 (Gulf News) – Mumbai: Wall collapses in Mumbai and nearby towns, caused by the worst monsoon rains in a single day in 14 years, killed 30 people on Tuesday and disrupted rail and air traffic, prompting officials to shut schools and offices. Financial markets were open in the city of 18 million […]

A worker fills a tanker train with water, which will be transported and supplied to drought-hit city of Chennai, at Jolarpettai railway station in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, India, 11 July 2019. Photo: P. Ravikumar / REUTERS

Water train set to relieve drought-hit Indian city – Doctors forced to buy water for surgery – “We won’t be able to supply water even to the people who can pay a huge sum for a tanker of water”

By P. Ravikumar 11 July 2019 JOLARPETTAI, India (Reuters) – Indian authorities on Thursday filled tanks with water and loaded them onto a train in the southern state of Tamil Nadu to supply its manufacturing capital Chennai where reservoirs have run dry. Technicians in the railway station at Jolarpettai, located over 135 miles (217 km) […]

Mannubai Chamariya at the check dam construction site in Sangvi village in Madhya Pradesh. Photo: Aarefa Johari / Quartz India

An investigation into how India dismantled its main defence against drought – “By shifting the focus to farm irrigation, the government is taking water conservation efforts back by 20 years”

By Aarefa Johari and Nithya Subramanian 1 July 2019 (Quartz) – At the height of the June summer in Madhya Pradesh, Mannubai Chamariya heaved boulders from the banks of a dry stream to a site where other workers arranged them in a tiled wall, filling the gaps with cement. The work was arduous but Chamariya […]

Groundwater levels across Chennai, June 2018 and June 2019. Wells in Anna Nagar and Choolaimedu in June 2019 were dry. Data: The Rain Centre, Chennai / Gaurav Dogra. Graphic: Reuters

Villagers accuse city of seizing water as drought parches “India’s Detroit” – “Private tankers have fitted more than eight bore wells in our village and are indiscriminately extracting thousands of liters of water every day”

By Sudarshan Varadhan 2 July 2019 CHENNAI (Reuters) – In the small village of Bangarampettai, 20 miles from India’s manufacturing capital Chennai, about 150 people last month “captured” a water tanker, breaking its windscreen and deflating its tires before handing it over to a nearby police station. People living on the outskirts of this southern […]

Residents get water from a community well in Chennai after reservoirs for the city ran dry in June 2019. The bustling capital of Tamil Nadu state usually receives 825 million litres of water a day, but authorities are currently only able to supply 60 percent of that. With temperatures regularly hitting 40 degrees Celsius, reservoirs have run dry and other water sources are dwindling each day. Photo: Arun Sankar / AFP

Why India’s Chennai has run out of water

By Nityanand Jayaraman 1 July 2019 (BBC News) – As I write this, it has rained in Chennai – the first real welcome shower, but one that lasted only 30 minutes. But, still, that has been enough to flood the streets and stall traffic. The irony is that Chennai’s vulnerability to floods and its water […]

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks with the media on the opening day of the parliament session in New Delhi, India, 17 June 2019. Photo: Adnan Abidi / REUTERS

India PM calls for water conservation push as drought hits crops

By Devjyot Ghoshal 30 June 2019 NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday pushed for greater grassroots water conservation efforts amid concerns weak monsoon rains would push millions of drought-hit people to the edge and hammer agricultural production in Asia’s third-biggest economy. The monsoon season is responsible for around 70% of […]

A 3,400-year-old palace of the Mittani Empire emerged from a reservoir in the Kurdistan region of Iraq after water levels dropped because of drought in June 2019. The Mittani Empire is one of the least researched civilizations of the Ancient Near East. Clay tablets found at the site have been sent to Germany for translation. Photo: University of Tübingen eScience Cente / Kurdistan Archaeology Organization

Ancient palace emerges from drought-hit Iraq reservoir

By Jack Guy 28 June 2019 (CNN) – A 3,400-year-old palace has emerged from a reservoir in the Kurdistan region of Iraq after water levels dropped because of drought. The discovery of the ruins in the Mosul Dam reservoir on the banks of the Tigris River inspired a spontaneous archeological dig that will improve understanding […]

A motorist drives on top of the Kariba Dam wall in Kariba, Zimbabwe, 19 February 2016. Photo: Philimon Bulawayo / REUTERS

Too much water or too little: Hydropower fights wild weather as climate changes rapidly

By Gerald Porter Jr. and Jeremy Hodges 22 June 2019 (Bloomberg) – The Kariba Dam has towered over one of Africa’s mightiest rivers for 60 years, forming the world’s largest reservoir and providing reliable electricity to Zambia and Zimbabwe. But as drought grips the region, flow on the Zambezi river has dwindled to a third of what […]

Indians stand in queues to fill vessels with drinking water from a water tanker in Chennai, capital of the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, Wednesday, 19 June 2019. Millions of people are turning to water tank trucks in the state as house and hotel taps run dry in an acute water shortage caused by drying lakes and depleted groundwater. Some private companies have asked employees to work from home and several restaurants are closing early and even considering stopping lunch meals if the water scarcity aggravates. Photo: R. Parthibhan / AP Photo

Life in India’s first city that’s almost out of water – “I’m scared for my daughter”

By Divya Karthikeyan and Swati Gupta 22 June 2019 Chennai, India (CNN) – As Manjula Sridhar went into the operation theater of a maternity ward in Chennai, the capital of the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, her mother began arguing with the doctor over a water shortage that threatened to delay the delivery. Cradling her little girl, […]

This forecast for 6 June 2019 shows the temperature anomaly (difference from normal) in India. Red shades show areas where the temperature is hotter than normal. Graphic: WeatherBell Analytics

Indian villages lie empty as drought forces thousands to flee – Sick and elderly left to fend for themselves – No water left in 35 major dams

By Sam Relph 11 June 2019 DELHI (The Guardian) – Hundreds of Indian villages have been evacuated as a historic drought forces families to abandon their homes in search of water. The country has seen extremely high temperatures in recent weeks. On Monday the capital, Delhi, saw its highest ever June temperature of 48C. In Rajasthan, […]

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