Chennai Floods: A Man-Made Disaster, Say Experts

As Chennai struggles to find its footing after the massive floods that has killed more than 100 people, experts say it was a man-made disaster that was waiting to strike the city.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J.Jayalalithaa's response to the floods in Tamil Nadu is frightening. She said, “Losses are unavoidable when there's very heavy rain. Swift rescue and relief alone are indicators of a good government.”

It is quite usual for politicians and civic officials to blame so-called unprecedented rains for the civic and humanitarian crisis each monsoon brings, and decouple development from disaster. But unprecedented rains occur quite regularly in Chennai.

As a city on the high-energy coast facing the Bay of Bengal, Chennai is no stranger to heavy rains and cyclonic storms. Chennai has experienced particularly heavy rains roughly once every 10 years – 1969, 1976, 1985, 1996, 1998, 2005, 2015.

In fact, at 235 mm, last weekend's rainfall is not even the big daddy of big rains. The Nungambakkam rain gauge recorded 270 mm on October 27,  2005; 280 mm in 1969, and 450 mm in November 1976.

Chennai has experienced more rainfall in the last 10 hours than United Kingdom has in an entire year.

The 2015 disaster was not just avoidable; it was a direct consequence of decisions pushed for by vested interests and conceded by town planners, bureaucrats and politicians in the face of wiser counsel.

Over the years, Water bodies across the city have been filled up and built upon, often by politicians with interests in the real estate business, say environmentalists. 

The Result:  During incessant rains, water overflows and inundates everything. Sewage mixes with drinking water.

In 2005 a similar deluge shook the city. This time, around 12,000 people had to be evacuated in Chennai alone.

According to Prof. M. Karmegam of Anna University, “Of the 16 tanks belonging to the Vyasarpadi chain downstream of Retteri, none remain”.

The Entire Sathyabama University was constructed in a water body on Old Mahabalipuram Road.

According to an article from scroll.in, “he Maduravoyal lake has shrunk from 120 acres to 25. Ditto with Ambattur, Kodungaiyur and Adambakkam tanks. The Koyambedu drain and the surplus channels from Korattur and Ambattur tanks are missing. Sections of the Veerangal Odai connecting Adambakkam tank to Pallikaranai are missing. The South Buckingham Canal from Adyar creek to Kovalam creek has been squeezed from its original width of 25 metres to 10 metres in many places due to the Mass Rapid Transit System railway stations. Important flood retention structures such as Virugambakkam, Padi and Villivakkam tanks are officially abandoned.”

Nisha Thota an environmentalist and Founder of SHUDDA said, "It's a wake-up call. There would be even bigger tragedies if we don't preserve our water bodies, if we don't deepen them... We don't have to depend on other states for water".

At Perumbakkam, off the IT Corridor, Thiyagarajan's dream home is on a filled-up lake. His prime property is now surrounded by water and is only accessible by boat. 

The airport authorities have decided to suspend all operations till 6th December following the flooding. All the flight are grounded. 

The landing gears of all the planes & jets are completely submerged under flood water.

A year ago in 2014, 61 people were crushed to death after an under-construction high-rise building put up on a lake bed collapsed. People still wade through knee-deep to waist-deep waters in Chennai's low-lying areas.

The case of the Pallikaranai marshlands, which drains water from a 250-square-kilometre catchment, is telling. Not long ago, it was a 50-square-kilometre water sprawl in the southern suburbs of Chennai. Now, it is 4.3 square kilometres – less than a tenth of its original. The growing finger of a garbage dump sticks out like a cancerous tumour in the northern part of the marshland.  Two major roads cut through the waterbody with few pitifully small culverts that are not up to the job of transferring the rain water flows from such a large catchment. The edges (of the marshlands) have been eaten into by institutes like the National Institute of Ocean Technology.

Many blame it on successive state governments for converting water bodies into housing estates. Some residents call it vote bank politics others say its collusion with developers. But the nightmare for people living in these areas is far from over. A Chennai citizen said "We pay so much of property tax but the government doesn't address our problems."

Remarkably, all these causes were listed out by the government's own officials at a seminar on waterways organised by the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority in 2010. But there seems to be many a slip between enlightened understanding and enlightened action.

Below are the google maps (Satellite View) of MRC Nagar of chennai, 2001(Left) & 2015 (Right- Before Flood).

Just to give you an idea of how severe the flood waters were, these are images of  planes & Jets that are swept away from chennai airport. Gulfstream 200 Jet (Left) & Premier 1A Jet [belonging to Premier Jet Services] (Right).

The saddest thing is National media is not showing the facts and flood situation to it's citizens. This lack of media coverage is slowing rescue & rehabilitation operations. 

Here is a video in which Rajdeep Sardesai (Consulting editor of the India Today group) explains the fault with the National Media & The Reason why NEWS Channels are not broadcasting Chennai Flood Situation. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzFchVXJaC8

According to Thakkar, there are many parallels between Chennai and Mumbai, where floods are now an annual affair. “Chennai has destroyed its water bodies the same way Mumbai had. Now Mumbai’s disaster from a decade ago is repeating in Chennai,” he said, referring to the 2005 deluge in Mumbai where over 1,000 lives were lost.

Postscript: After the last floods, this sketch made by a Chennai student was circulated on Facebook. The last image is a tragically accurate prediction of what is happening in Chennai.

Source: Rajesh Babu/Facebook

Hope Chennai Recover soon. #Save_Chennai

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Edit 1:

If enough measures aren't taken, the deluge of 2015 can happen again.

This video from Scroll (from the link below) clearly depicts everything that lead to flooding of chennai two years ago.

https://www.facebook.com/scroll.in/videos/1603151573101050/