Another Word in Dictionary

Last year people of south India had a new name attached to their dictionary. It had its origin from Japan – and its none other than ‘Tsunami’. Tsunami created havoc to the whole of South Asia which resulted in the loss of innumerable lives. This has been the hallmark of destruction for the year 2004 by Mother Nature.

This year again, though confined to parts of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, another name is being added. This is however a cyclone by name ‘Baaz’. This time it had its origin from Iran. The year 2005 saw as many as 25 Hurricanes hitting North America and similarly number of Typhoons hitting Japan.

So, what’s this…? All this refer to the same natural phenomenon. If the event happens in the Indian Ocean, it’s called Cyclone. If the same event happens over Atlantic Ocean, it’s called Hurricanes and when it happens over Pacific Ocean we call them Typhoons. So all ultimately refer to the same natural event, their names vary as well as their velocity.

Cyclones are circulating storms formed in the ocean between 5 and 30 degrees north and south of equator. They are very unpredictable in the sense, they may slow, accelerate, curve or move linearly on their paths. They may be active for a few hours to even few weeks.

In the history of India, so far 7 cyclones have been recorded to have caused maximum damage, the last being this one. The 1st cyclone was way back in 1864 in Calcutta which claimed nearly 70,000 lives, which so far is the only cyclone to have caused maximum damage. There have been events recorded in 1942 (Bengal), 1971 (Orissa), 1977 (Andhra Pradesh), 1996 (Andhra Pradesh), 1999 (Orissa) and 2003 (Andhra Pradesh). These have caused damages but their scale of destruction is comparatively less. Incidentally all the cyclones have hit only the eastern side of the country – states which share one of its borders with the Bay of Bengal.

Cyclones, Hurricanes, Typhoons – whatever name we give, are created by Mother Nature which have brought destruction & claimed colossal number of lives. Though, scientifically we can say that these require a lot of preconditions to evolve, we can just be a spectator when it lashes. Man has not reached such a stage from where he can predict the quantum of destruction from these natural calamities. By science, we can find its course, nothing else can be done.

Mr. Kalam too spoke on the same lines at the conference held in IIT Madras. He wanted scientist of the world to not only predict, but also provide with additional information like amount of water level carried by the clouds as well as the amount of destruction it can cause. He also wanted the entire scientists of the world to start a virtual grid of information about natural calamities like cyclones, hurricanes, typhoons, earthquakes… which will help in knowledge sharing. Since India was not a member of the Tsunami warning system we were not forewarned about it. So we should see to it that anything of this sort never happens again.

Tsunami did cause wide spread damage & destruction – and people have named their kids ‘Tsunami’ as a mark of remembrance. So, I hope this doesn’t happen with this cyclone Baaz.