Mumbai: The 2005 deluge that saw the city go under couldn't dampen the spirit of Mumbaikars. Neither could landslides, which bring shanties crumbling like a pack of cards every monsoon. The city's famed spirit has now got an official stamp from a newly-devised disaster resilience index that concludes community camaraderie is among the few aspects of the city still ticking during natural disasters. 

The soon-to-be released climate disaster resilience index was developed by experts at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) after mapping five of the city's worst-hit slum pockets. Human and social dimensions, mainly community involvement, contributed most to people's resilience, notching scores of 0.60 and 0.47 on the index of 1.0. Worryingly, the slum settlements scored a poor 0.36 on most other factors owing to the absence of disaster warning systems, poor infrastructure and inaccessibility of areas to rescue services such as fire brigades and ambulances. 

As another monsoon approaches, the index underlines the under-preparedness of the city to deal with another 26/7 deluge. The findings are of concern as nearly 70 lakh of the city's 1.2 crore population is estimated to be living in slums. 

 

Source :- http://cdrn.org.in/show.detail.asp?id=21795