Opinion Express View on Chennai floods: A wake-up call for urban planners

Cyclone Michaung has disrupted life in Chennai. But the problems for Tamil Nadu’s capital began two days before the cyclone made its landfall in Andhra Pradesh on December 5. Heavy rainfall caused floods, submerging houses and halting communication services, at least 20 people have lost their lives. Several localities continue to be under water more than 48 hours after the rains abated, power outages have sparked protests and shortages of essentials including drinking water, milk and diesel have added to a growing sense of desperation across the city. The state government claims it acted more promptly than in the 2015 floods, which claimed more than 400 lives in Chennai. It has also said that waters from the reservoirs were released after people living in low-lying areas were relocated to shelters. But the administration needs to do much more than react after the elements have had their say. People being electrocuted by loose cable wires in one of India’s premier metros, which the government wants to develop into a smart city, should be seen as intolerable.

The Chennai district administration has placed a large measure of the blame on the sea pushing back the water through the canals. That’s a facile argument. High tides are par for the course in coastal cities. Tamil Nadu’s capital is located in a rain-shadow area, which gets most of its precipitation from the northeast monsoon, including cyclonic storms. In recent years, Chennai, like several parts of the country, has been experiencing short-duration spells of intense rainfall. That’s the biggest challenge for the city’s planners. The Tamil Nadu government is constructing a stormwater drainage system across Chennai and the city administration has claimed that the areas with the new drains escaped flooding. The Rs 4,500 crore project has been on since 2017 and by all accounts, nearly two-thirds of Chennai remains to be connected with the new network. The suffering caused by the latest floods should push the state government to expedite the drainage revamp system. More will need to be done to build the flood-prone city’s defences. After the 2015 floods, experts had reasoned that planners should re-think construction projects on wetlands. These sponges soak up water and recharge aquifers — they can therefore also mitigate Chennai’s other pressing problem, drinking water shortage. There is, however, very little evidence that the city authorities have heeded this advice.

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Also Read | Chennai struggles after Cyclone Michaung: Shortages of drinking water, milk, and diesel, several areas remain inundated

In the past five years, meteorological agencies have stepped up to the challenge of issuing timely cyclone alerts. City planners need to act now. The Chennai floods triggered by the rainfall induced by cyclone Michaung should be a wake-up call.