Chennai, a city of eleven million people, is devoid of water. The coastal city in India’s south is a disaster capital of the world. Prone to cyclones, flooding, and droughts, Chennai’s unpredictable conditions are predictably devastating. For weeks taps have run dry, leaving residents at the mercy of government relief. Currently, people are being forced to queue in the blistering heat for hours just to fill plastic containers from emergency water tank trucks. While there are a considerable number of tankers importing water, aid measures aren’t fulfilling present demand. Worse yet, the price of each tanker has quadrupled this month making their life-saving distributions inaccessible for poorer citizens.

This crisis has escalated because of poor government foresight. Blinded by unchecked growth, government policy has supported infrastructure projects which have inadvertently diminished the cities perennial water bodies and reservoirs. The destruction of the wetlands around the city has made the recycling and harvesting of water ecologically impossible. In spite of these grievous circumstances, many government officials refuse to acknowledge the severity of this disaster. Without formal admission, it’s improbable that any actionable solutions will be implemented.

Compared to the average U.S. household which uses 1,100 litres of water daily, those living in Chennai’s slums are lucky if they receive a meagre 30 litres. Regardless of wealth, all of Chennai has borne the brunt of a crisis brought about from a multi-decade promotion of anthropocentric values. This warped ideology has made Chennai the first Indian city to have gone completely dry. Jayashree Vencatesan, managing trustee of Care Earth Trust says, “Unless the city’s landscape is resilient, the people cannot be resilient.” Heavy rains and droughts are inevitabilities in the region, but a lack of design to cope with both eventualities is nothing short of an embarrassment.

A below average monsoon is indeed a cause for groundwater levels plummeting. However human forces, specifically a century-long urban agenda, has compounded the consequences of this season’s underwhelming deluge. The origins of this spiralling journey toward “zero water” began with British colonisation. In an attempt to centralise Chennai, the British commandeered water projects away from metropolitan areas thereby freeing up space for real estate developments. This move curbed resident’s reliance on the natural flood mitigation and water retention effects they afforded from local estuaries. Chennai’s thousand-year-old water tank reserves have been drained and filled. These large public domains have been privatised and turned into high-rise housing to accommodate Chennai’s booming population, which has increased twenty-two-fold since 1900.

21 Indian cities are expected to run out of groundwater by the end of 2020, and Chennai is one of the first of many dominos expected to imminently topple. Forecasts suggest that this forthcoming undersupply will cause “extreme” water stress for over 600 million Indian people.

In light of Chennai’s struggles, the Indian Government and its citizens must collectively re-examine the worth of their natural resources. The prelude to this catastrophe wasn’t sudden. This isn’t an unworldly apocalyptic event but rather a result of slow human-induced environmental degradation. India’s government doesn’t have the means to avert this forthcoming hardship in its totality. Though, leaders have no right to be complacent. They must introduce combative policy, or at a minimum increase efforts to promote a land-friendly economy.

Hopefully, Chennai’s citizens are given a much-needed reprieve, though Himanshu Thakkar of the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People points out an unfortunate reality should rain come: “The problem is that we will all forget and go back to other stories.”