Kerala’s August 2026 red-alert deluge, which submerged homes and commercial streets in Pathanamthitta, Kottayam, Idukki, Kasaragod and Kozhikode within hours, is the latest instalment of a pattern that has recurred with grim regularity since the catastrophic floods of 2018. This paper argues that while a warming Arabian Sea and El Niño-linked monsoon variability have undoubtedly intensified single-day rainfall events across the Western Ghats, the scale of destruction owes at least as much to decades of unregulated quarrying, unplanned housing and road construction on wetlands and floodplains, and the collapse of natural drainage systems choked by plastic waste. It further documents the growing volume of non-biodegradable plastic surging into Kerala’s backwaters with every flood, and the attendant public health threat of microplastic ingestion through the fish and food chain. The paper closes with a ten-point action agenda for the Government of Kerala and comparable developing regions, and sets out specific roles for United Nations agencies, the Asian Development Bank, the African Development Bank, the Islamic Development Bank, the newly constituted Board of Peace, and civil society, in building long-term climate and disaster resilience.
Nepal Cannot Afford to Rebuild the Same Country After Every Disaster
Nepal’s earthquakes, monsoon floods, landslides and glacial-lake hazards are not occasional shocks; they are structural features of a young mountain landscape now under mounting pressure from a changing climate and unplanned development. The country’s disaster losses since the 1930s – most severely in the 2015 Gorkha earthquake, which killed nearly 8,700 people and destroyed close to half a million homes – show that Nepal keeps rebuilding the same vulnerabilities it lost the last time. This paper argues for a shift from a relief-and-reconstruction model to a permanent national resilience model, built on ten interlocking pillars: hazard mapping, risk-sensitive land use, landslide prevention, watershed restoration, river management, glacier and glacial-lake monitoring, earthquake-safe construction, biodiversity protection, community preparedness and long-term resilience financing. The recommendations are addressed both to the Government of Nepal and to the international development community.
