As you might have heard, the state of Kerala, in India, just witnessed one of the most devastating floods that has ever happened. There were a lot of losses, but the people of Kerala are trying their best to keep it to the minimum. Here are some suggestions and ideas, which could've helped us to be more prepared in the event of such a calamity.

(Source - https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/kerala-floods-special-train-takes-stranded-people-back-to-bengal-1903846)

Also it should be noted that, even during the midst of such an event, students had come up with several smart solutions, such as the website, keralarescue.in which helped a lot of people to carry out rescue operations in an organised manner and helped stranded people to reach out.

Here are some ideas which could've been implemented.

1. Autonomous drones, powered by AI which identifies genuine cases of isolated people, and delivers food and other necessities. This could've been really useful as during a situation where the roads are filled with water and transportation is out of question, drones which can travel on their own can easily navigate and reach out to the people. It could've made the airdrop of resources much more organised.

2. A blockchain based architecture for logging distress signals, maybe an easily accessible app, which people can use to log their location and other details, and the consensus mechanism would involve some sort of verification by the volunteers who are helping people with the evacuation and rehabilitation.

3. Bots, which can traverse through water and heavy currents, which also locates and identifies humans, animals, and other important articles, such as vehicles or documents, and procure them to a safe location. Machine learning could be implemented, or some sort of AI which could identify humans and so on.

4. Even after the floods, people are not getting the promised funds from the government quickly enough to start rebuilding their houses and recovering their lost belongings or other documents. A blockchain based platform could be implemented for people to request for the funding in a legitimate and organised manner.

These are only some vague ideas, which can be studied and developed upon. A lot can be improvised and innovated, so that in the event of such a calamity, maybe sometime in the future, we could all be more prepared to face it.

#keralafloods2018 #rebuildkerala