The Bandstand Promenade along Mumbai’s waterfront offers a rare respite from the chaos and cacophony that plague the city of more than 20 million. People of all classes and castes stroll, enjoy street food and take selfies, and after sunset nearby clubs pump out high-octane hits into the wee hours. Across the two-lane road that lines the stone walkway, sumptuous homes of billionaire potentates and Bollywood princes hide behind gates and gardens.
Extreme weather threatens it all. Cyclones, South Asia’s equivalent of hurricanes, have long been a problem on India’s east coast, from Kolkata down to Chennai, but the other side of the country was largely spared. Global warming, though, has made them more common in the Arabian Sea along the west coast. In the 19th and 20th centuries, only five cyclones threatened or hit Mumbai, according to the most reliable records. In the past five years alone, two such storms have come perilously close to the city, with 2021’s Tauktae extensively damaging an oil rig just offshore.
