From May 12-19, in the midst of the devastating second wave of the pandemic, the powerful Cyclone Tauktae struck India’s west coast and killed more than 100 people. This was the deadliest cyclone in the Arabian Sea over the last decade. Starting from southwestern Lakshadweep, the cyclone battered all states on India’s west coast and the remnants caused rainfall even in northern parts of India, Sindh province of Pakistan and Nepal. Its clouds advanced as far as China.
On 10 March 2020, the UN Secretary-General Mr. Antonio Guterres launched the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) State of the Climate 2019. The Report confirms that 2019 was the second-warmest year on record, and 2010 to 2019 was the warmest decade on record. Climate change clearly continues, and its impacts are more and more visible in many ways. Extreme weather struck every corner of the globe in 2019, while Asia-Pacific continues to bear the brunt of major impacts.
The Asia-Pacific region is no stranger to extreme shocks and events, from the 1997 Asian financial crisis, the 2003 SARS outbreak, the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, the 2015 Nepal earthquake, the 2018 Cyclone Gita , to the 2020 Taal volcano eruption. At present, the COVID-19 pandemic is the latest and probably the most devastating in a long line of varied disasters impacting the region.
“We have to learn from COVID… We can’t wish away systemic risk. It’s much much cheaper, much more effective to invest upfront in order to avoid disaster and so it is with climate change – a crisis which also involves the entire world and one from which no one can self-isolate.”
In Asia and the Pacific, the impact of COVID-19 has been tremendous due to the high concentration of people, economic activities and resource consumption.
“Act decisively and early to prevent the further spread or quickly suppress the transmission of COVID-19 and save lives” is the first strategic objective of the UN framework on responding to the socio-economic impacts of COVID-19.
Worldwide, many countries continue to experience an extended period of COVID-19 risks. There are no off-the-shelf solutions for managing such a complex crisis, in which measures to prevent transmission will have colossal economic and social costs. Countries are forced to confront hard choices of balancing the needs to save lives and to save livelihoods.
Last week saw a ‘crisis on top of a crisis’ in South Asia – the unprecedented impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in the region was followed by the most powerful cyclone to strike India and Bangladesh for 20 years. Cyclone Amphan claimed over 100 lives and destroyed the homes and livelihoods of thousands of families already struggling to cope with the COVID-19 crisis.
How do we weather a destructive tropical cyclone during a pandemic? A province in northern Philippines offers some practical pointers.
Against all odds
Despite being battered by some of the strongest typhoons, Albay, a province of 1.5 million people, has not seen a single disaster-related death in three decades except during a double typhoon disaster in 2006.
The last few months have seen the collisions of COVID-19 with climate extremes. Its impact is potentially inter-generational where poverty, disaster risks and environmental degradation converge, especially in multi-hazard risk hotspots such as South Asia.