The recent flash flood that struck Dharali village in Uttarakhand is feared to have killed several people, with more than 60 missing. In an instant, an entire village disappeared. Could this have been avoided? Perhaps not entirely. After all, this was the consequence of years of accumulated vulnerabilities. But what makes it even more devastating is that the India Meteorological Department (IMD) had issued warnings two days in advance, yet the message never reached the right people. Weak last-mile communication turned a forecast into a tragedy.

Data emerging from Dharali suggests that the material and human losses were catastrophic, underscoring the cost of ineffective last-mile communication. Worse still, we have become somewhat desensitised to such events. They have become frighteningly frequent. For instance, in the past years, flash floods, landslides, and cloudbursts turned into everyday news across the Himalayan states.

However, Dharali is not an isolated story. In India today, four to five hours of rain can put entire cities underwater. Villages in the hills live with the risk of sudden landslides and flash floods. The danger is clear. The question is: do we treat these events as just another headline? Or do we recognise them as a ticking bomb — one that will eventually go off closer to home for each of us?

This is where climate communication becomes crucial. It is not simply about sharing information. It is about making consequences real, urgent, and actionable. Climate communication needs to be aggressive, assertive, and consequence driven. When backed with simple, broken-down, easy-to-digest data, photos, or videos, it takes the message home more powerfully. This, added with the need of regional contextualisation in the messaging — both in language and framework, is as important. In fact, when governments use communication well, it can become an adaptation tool too.