Climate change played a key factor in torrential rains in India that triggered catastrophic landslides killing at least 200 people last month, a group of scientists said Wednesday.
Monsoon rains battered the southern coastal state of Kerala and triggered landslides on July 30, burying homes and residents in Wayanad district under tonnes of rock and soil.
World Weather Attribution, a network of scientists who have pioneered peer-reviewed methods for assessing the possible role of climate change in specific extreme events, said the link between the intense rainfall and a warming planet was clear.
"The landslides... were triggered by a burst of rainfall that was made about 10 percent heavier by human-caused climate change," the WWA analysis by 24 scientists said, noting more than 140mm (5.5 inches) of rain fell in a single day.
氣候變遷加劇印度致命山崩
一群科學家週三表示，氣候變遷是上月印度暴雨的主要因素，這場暴雨引發災難性的山崩，導致至少200人喪生
7月30日，季風降雨襲擊印度南部沿海的克勒拉邦，引發山崩，將瓦亞納德地區的房屋和居民埋在數噸岩石和泥土之下。
「世界氣候歸因組織」（WWA）是一個由科學家組成的網絡，他們率先採用同行評審的方法，來評估氣候變遷在特定極端事件中的可能影響。該網絡表示，強降雨與地球暖化之間的聯繫十分明確。
WWA由24位科學家所做的分析指出，「山崩…是由一場因人為氣候變遷導致降雨量增加約10％的暴雨引發的」，並指出單日降雨量超過140公釐（5.5英寸）。