Exact prediction of disasters can help save lives

Gakenke residents remove mud from a road after heavy rains that left the road impassable. File.

The Ministry of Disaster Preparedness and refugee Affairs (MIDIMAR) has sounded alarm bells warning the public to brace themselves for severe weather in the upcoming rainy season.

As usual, the Western and Northern provinces will bear the brunt because of the hilly topography which favours frequent lightning strikes and landslides.

Right now in many parts of the world, the skies have been in revolt unleashing their anger and it has been estimated that hundreds lost their lives as storms battered ocean fronts in four continents.

Most countries avoided the worst because they had been able to predict the paths of the storms and which parts of their countries had to take extra care and urged people to take shelter, and in some cases, evacuate.

The US which is currently at the mercy of Hurricane Florence and well as Typhoon Mangkhut that first devastated Philippines and has now made landfall in South Eastern China, have been under great scrutiny for the last week or so.

They were tracked with precision knowing when the speeds were increasing or decreasing, downgrading them when necessary and calculating the exact amount of water that would come with the winds.

They were able to avert major catastrophes because of science and technology. Our weather forecast precision is still ages away otherwise we would be able to predict the amount of water that would provoke a landslide in any given area and evacuate people in time.

MIDIMAR is doing the right thing in sounding an early warning but it is time our weatherman graduated from something akin to guesswork and adopted modern precise technology.