Three devastating cyclones — Yaas, Tauktae, and Gulab — displaced 2.5 million Indians in 2021

• Around 4.9 million Indians became homeless due to natural disasters in 2021.
• Cyclone Yaas, Tauktae, and Gulab — displaced 2.5 million alone in 2021, as per the IDMC report.
• The report further reveals that around 1.9 million displacements were recorded between June and October 2021.

India records some of the highest numbers of displacements in the world every year and mostly are triggered by disaster events. The year 2021 recorded around 80 disaster events that displaced around 4.9 million people, as per a new report by Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC)

Floods and cyclones, which are influenced by the south-west and north-east monsoon seasons, were the main reasons for disaster displacement. The number of displacements that cyclones trigger has increased in recent years and particularly since 2016.

According to the IDMC report, the three worst-hit cyclones Yaas, Tauktae, and Gulab led to the displacement of 2.5 million alone.

Source: IDMC report

Cyclone Tauktae, which was one of the most powerful storms to hit India’s west coast in more than 20 years, prompted 258,000 evacuations and caused damage and destruction across five states and union territories.

In less than a week, Cyclone Yaas began to form in the Bay of Bengal and made another 2.2 million homeless, primarily in Odisha and West Bengal. Cyclone Yaas accounted for the highest number of displacements in India.

Cyclone Gulab prompted another 50,000 evacuations in September in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha, as per the data revealed by the report.

The report further revealed that around 1.9 million displacements were recorded between June and October 2021, and the northeast monsoon, which ran from October to December, triggered further smaller-scale displacements, primarily in southern states.

Disaster is not the sole reason behind people displacing

A shocking fact to be noted is that politics and intercommunal violence also led to 13,000 people being displaced in India in 2021. And, according to the report, the post-electoral violence in West Bengal alone prompted 11,000 displacements.

After the announcement of election results on 2 May, violent clashes erupted between supporters of the All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Homes, shops, and political offices were burnt and more than 11,000 displacements were recorded.

19 out of 36 states and union territories in the country have displaced populations, some of the largest being in Assam, Tripura and Mizoram in the northeast, and Jammu and Kashmir in the northwest, says the report.

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