Cyclone Tauktae ‘sends back’ garbage dumped in sea off India as images of rubbish-strewn beaches go viral

Mumbai’s civic body cleaned up double the trash they usually do from seven beaches after the cyclone

Cyclone Tauktae has hit several Indian states along with Maharashtra (Getty Images )

Cyclone Tauktae, that has hit several coastal states of India, has brought tons of trash back to Mumbai’s beaches that had been thrown in the sea over the years.

The extremely severe tropical cyclone has hit several states along the coast of Arabian sea, causing damage to life and property. With heavy rains and storms, people are being advised to stay inside.

One sight from the beaches of the city of Mumbai catching a lot of attention is that of the heaps of rubbish that the sea dumped when the cyclone hit coastal areas.

According to Times of India, the civic solid waste management of the city has to remove rubbish weighing about 62,010 kilograms from the various beaches, after the cyclone flooded the beaches with plastic wrappers and other kinds of trash.

While beaches like Dadar, Girgaon, Juhu etc face usually face the problem of rubbish lying around, the difference between the amount of trash found before and after the cyclone is massive.

On May 15, before the cyclone hit the city, the civic body had collected 33,110 kilograms from the seven beaches of Mumbai, where the amount of waste almost doubled after the cyclone hit.

Several people commented on the phenomenon and shared images on Twitter from the beaches, calling it a “return gift” of the sea.

“We dumped our waste into the sea. The Sea returned back everything in the last two days,” wrote user Kirti Patadia.

“What you give to nature comes back to you exactly the way it was given. Kindly ensure no waste finds its way into rivers or seas that is adversely affecting marine ecosystem,” wrote Dinesh Patel.

“Payback time!! Beach in #Mumbai flooded with waste after #CycloneTauktae because if we will not maintain the balance nature will,” wrote Reshma Bhatt.

Mumbai’s beaches are among the most polluted in the world despite several attempts of clean up drives set up by volunteers over the years. According to a 2019 study released by Indian Institute of Technology in the city, the rate with which the oceans are filling up, by 2050, Mumbai’s seas might have more of plastic than fish.

The cyclone was the strongest to skirt around the city of Mumbai in last five decades, killing 18 people and injuring nine.