Chennai India emerging from flood waters

5/12/2015

Chennai flooding. People on the roof

One of India’s major cities is slowly emerging from flood waters that have paralyzed much of it this past week. The densely packed city of nearly 9 million was inundated as torrential rains continued to fall. While the flood waters are slowly receding, more rain is expected.

Chennai is located in the south of India. Monsoon rains that started in November have been particularly heavy. The monsoon is expected to continue until about mid-December.

Electricity has been in short supply for the past week because of the danger of electrocutions in the soaked city. It has been reported that 18 people died when their life support systems failed when auxiliary power generators were also flooded. The lack of electrical power in the city would also affect clean water supplies and sewage pumping for those that have indoor toilet facilities.

Many in India lack private toilet facilities. Flooding of untreated sewage into the mix increases the chances of spreading parasites and disease microbes.

As well, when the waters recede to form puddles they provide a perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes that can spread malaria and dengue fever.

Some in the city are profiting from the misery. There are reports of price gouging for such essentials as clean drinking water and milk for infants. With the mucky waters reaching the first floors of substantial buildings most food in residences has been destroyed.

The poor are the hardest hit. Chennai has extensive slums. The shelters are often flimsy and have been completely destroyed by the floods. The poor traditionally are relegated to those areas less desirable or safe for living.

Authorities may have made the situation worse in the short term by releasing water from dams and lakes in order to avoid uncontrollable breaches. They have been criticized for lack of planning for emergencies as city dwellers see the roads, telephone and water work destroyed. Urban planners have allowed building on marshy ground and on flood plains. The airport that is currently shut to commercial flights is built on the floodplain of the Adyar River.

Damage estimates losses at over USD$ 2 billion. Confirmed death count 245.

Sources:
The Hindu
Times of India
ChicagoTribune

3 Comments

Baskar Alvar Maniccam

8/12/2015 08:13:51 pm

Chennai is a low-lying flood plain area, almost like a chapati, rises slightly as the distance from the sea-shore increases but the average elevation of the city is not more than 6.6 m above sea level, while most of the localities are just at sea-level and drainage in such areas remains a serious problem. Apart from plain terrain lacking natural gradient for free run-off, the sewage system was originally designed for about just over half a million population. Later it was modified during 1989-91 even then it has not reached the required capacity. Experts point out the Second Master Plan by the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority has paid no attention to hydrology and stormwater management. In Chennai, 650 water bodies, which include lakes, ponds, and storage tanks, have been eliminated to accomodate new construction.. Today, sadly, there are just 27 water bodies in Chennai. Chennai has only 850 km of storm drains for the 2,850 km of roads. There is no storage infrastructure to harvest the rain water in Chennai.

Chennai is drained by Cooum River and Adyar River in addition to many major and minor drainage channels through Buckingham Canal to Sea.

It is only once is ten years that Chennai gets enough rain to flood the city. The rest of time, people pray for rain as ground water levels deplete and water trucks deliver water to apartment complexes, villas and tenements. But last week it was different. In the first 24 hours Chennai received 250 mm of rainfall. In 1976, Chennai saw a record 450 mm of rainfall in a single day, almost twice what the highest rainfall was this year in a day. The year 2005 Chennai received more than 250 mm rainfall in 24 hours.

Several years ago, at seminars, Stormwater Management Experts pontificated of the dangers of building the Mass Rapid Transit System on the Buckingham Canal, of constructions on the Pallikaranai marshlands and of locating the Information Technology corridor on a water body. But the constructions continued nevertheless. Gated communities as well as special economic zones have come up in areas which should have been catchments areas. Temple tanks which refueled the ground water through centuries have been concreted. Tenements and apartment complexes have come up on the flood plains of the rivers. The unique eco system with mangroves and intertidal zones will all be a thing of the past. A disastrous cocktail of sewerage and rain water entered homes bringing with it promises of deadly disease, snakes and scorpions. In many parts of South Chennai, the water was almost 1.5 m in depth, especially those which have been constructed on marshes and swamps.

The main cause for the flooding has been the blatant disregard for ecology by the caucus of politicians, civil servants and developers. Due to dumping of garbage and massive reclamation, marshland especially in south Chennai has reduced to one-tenth of its size. Swamps and wet lands such as Pallikaranai have been reclaimed to accommodate high rise buildings. The case in point is of Tharamani and Velachery, two areas which are waterlogged in the event of rain. Phoenix Mall, the largest mall in Chennai, is on a lake bed in Velachery. Tamil Nadu government has built a slum resettlement colony along the river channel and multi-storeyed housing estates have come up which blocks the natural drainage of river basin into the sea. The original silting pattern was shifted due to the development. Sewage and industrial effluent dumped into the Buckingham canal and silting have left the waterway stagnant.

Chennai is built on a floodplain, development has essentially gone unchecked: Chennai’s critical infrastructure—like the airport, automobile manufacturing plants, and IT centers as well as thousands of houses—has been built over streams and marshes, and plastic bags clog drainage networks. Chennai’s infrastructure has strained to keep up with the rapid growth. Due to this, the surface run-off is too high and the infiltration capacity of land has gone down drastically. Due to the increase in impervious areas and lack of proper storm drainage, Chennai will experience severe floods during every heavy rainfall. And yet, Chennai is continue to build recklessly on lake-beds and river-beds.

NEWTEKWORLDNEWS

8/12/2015 09:03:33 pm

Thank you for a comprehensive and interesting comment. If you would like to share as a post on the your Voice blog of the website please contact the team at tekjournalismuk@gmail.com

B. McPherson

16/12/2015 05:48:20 pm

I second the above comments. You have given so much more information and background to this story. India is such an important country, you can add first hand information about it.

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Chennai India emerging from flood waters

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Barbara McPherson

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