⁍ Hyderabad this month saw its heaviest rainfall in a century, leaving 70 dead.

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⁍ India hopes to begin correcting that with a project launched last month to train cities to become climate smart.

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⁍ The effort is part of an ambitious broader plan to modernise cities with everything from high-speed internet to better transport systems.

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– India’s southern city of Hyderabad is known as a high-tech hub—but its infrastructure is looking increasingly dated in an era of strengthening climate change impacts. The city—home to offices of Microsoft and Google—this month saw its heaviest rainfall in a century, which left 70 dead and $77 million in damage to roads and drains, officials said. In many cities in India which find themselves increasingly caught between worsening droughts and deluges, urban planners have rarely considered growing climate risks when designing projects. That lack of preparation—a global problem—is expected to be hugely costly, with about $90 trillion likely to be spent worldwide building and updating infrastructure by 2030, according to the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate. But India—hit by worsening disaster-related losses—hopes to begin correcting that with a project launched last month to train cities to become climate smart. “Cities are experiencing huge variability in climate … one year there is flood, another year water scarcity,” says Umamaheshwaran Rajasekar, who heads the Climate Center for Cities at India’s National Institute of Urban Affairs. “It is not about looking at the past but looking at the future … how we can enable future development through informed action.” The effort is part of an ambitious broader plan to modernise cities with everything from high-speed internet to better transport systems. Under it, 139 cities will be trained to integrate climate risk in the planning stage.