80% of south Mumbai will go under water by 2050, predicts civic chief

Mumbai - Nature has been giving warnings, but if people do not “wake up” then the situation would turn “dangerous”.

Mumbai Municipal Commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal has made a sinister prediction for the city, saying that by 2050, a major portion of south Mumbai, including the business district of Nariman Point and state secretariat Mantralaya, will go under water due to the rising sea level.

Speaking at the launch of Mumbai Climate Action Plan and its website at the hands of Maharashtra Environment and Tourism Minister Aaditya Thackeray on Friday, Chahal said about 70 per cent of the city’s A, B, C and D wards in south Mumbai will be under water due to climate change.

He said that nature has been giving warnings, but if people do not “wake up” then the situation would turn “dangerous”. “Eighty per cent of the areas like Cuffe Parade, Nariman Point and Mantralaya will be underwater...means going to disappear,” he said.

The civic chief also said that it is a matter of just 25-30 years as 2050 is not too far. “We are getting warnings from nature and if we do not wake up, it will be a dangerous situation for the next 25 years. And it will not only be the next generation but the current generation will also suffer,” Chahal warned.

He said that Mumbai is the first city in South Asia that is preparing its climate action plan and acting on it. “Earlier, we used to hear about climate change events like melting glaciers, but not directly affecting us. But now it has come to our doorstep,” he added.

Chahal said that last year for the first time in 129 years, a cyclone (Nisarga) hit Mumbai and thereafter in the last 15 months, there have been three cyclones. After that, on August 5, 2020, about 5 to 5.5 feet water was accumulated at Nariman Point.

• India