On May 17, 2021, cyclone Tauktae made landfall in the state of Gujarat on the west coast of India. Classified as an extremely severe cyclonic storm by the Indian Meteorological Department, Tauktae resulted in at least 169 deaths and the displacement of more than 200,000 people. Its destructive force was boosted by India’s struggle with the second global wave of covid-19 at the time. Tauktae made landfall on the day when India recorded its second highest single-day death toll at the time. India had to deal with two disasters simultaneously, one meteorological-hydrological and one biological.
Disasters and History helps us to understand such disasters by treating historical disasters as a laboratory “to test theories with relevance beyond particular time-space contexts” (43). The authors show what seemingly diverse events such as earthquakes, droughts, or epidemics have in common. Although varying considerably in both their causes and consequences, these disasters are...