10/13/2025
Anyone who sincerely takes a bird’s-eye view of the areas around Jorabat (Meghalaya, India) cannot help but feel a deep sense of hopelessness.
The lush green hills that once stood like proud forts of Meghalaya’s natural charm are now gasping for breath. Not just that, they are scarred, shrinking, and also weeping!
It seems that all these years, there has been no administrative authority willing to take a firm stand to protect our forests, safeguard our flora and fauna, and preserve our precious water bodies.
The slow disappearance of these hills due to rampant earth-cutting, quarrying, and the construction of buildings in the name of development has begun to spell disaster.
This Sunday, on the 5th of October, a brief downpour lasting less than thirty minutes was enough to expose the fragility of our battered ecology. Like thousands of other commuters, my friends and I, while returning from Guwahati, were stranded for more than two hours due to a partial flash flood. It was a short spell of rain, yet the consequences were severe.
I shudder to think what would have happened if it had rained continuously for five hours that day. On May 30–31, 2025, these areas received about 110 mm of rainfall within 24 hours, marking the highest May rainfall ever recorded, turning NH-27 near Jorabat into a flowing river and causing seven-hour traffic jams. Have we not heard countless people missing their flights and trains to Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru because of these recurring flash floods? Is this highway not our only lifeline to the rest of the country? I dare say, this stretch of GS Road is the “central vein” of Meghalaya; when it clogs, the entire body gasps.
🔗Read the full story: https://www.newsgram.com/meghalaya/2025/10/10/the-price-of-development-floods-mud-and-lost-forests
