Chennai floods

Comer · Post by **Comer** » 06 Dec 2015 19:01

There is another video of the same rescue, longer view and from a different angle;
https://www.facebook.com/flashnewstamil ... 441775124/

SriKumar · Post by **SriKumar** » 06 Dec 2015 19:24

Fascinating. One can see the helicopter rock a little as she puts her weight on the chopper skids. The center of gravity of the chopper would have changed with her stepping on it, and the pilot (probably) had to compensate for it. It continues as she moves within the chopper.

SaraLax · Post by **SaraLax** » 06 Dec 2015 20:03

chaanakya wrote:Chennai and TN in general , is full of good Samaritans. Perhaps result of Proselytisation. appreciate the work. I think even Bengaluru folks and NRIs have stood up to help.

Appreciate that.

Your above highlighted statement is so far from truth.

If you were a true Chennaite (which i am) you would know that - Its the EJ vultures (& its many Christian denominations) which completely imitate the Hindu practices (Vijayadasami & initiating education for children on an auspicious day and this happens in Christian Schools in a big manner, Christian scripture based rendering & singing of the Venkatesa Suprabhatham tune, Adaptation of Bharatanatyam to Christian scriptures, Saffron color attires for preachers in a sort of Churidhar setup - used to come in an EJ show broadcasted on RAJ TV on every Sunday Prime TV night slots, Walking Holy Pilgrimages to Velankanni church akin to age old Palani & Sabarimalai padhayathirai of Tamil Hindus, adaptation of Aadi Month Friday cultural aspects of Hinduism into special prayer sessions for converted Women folks, Going aggressive on Idols of Christianity's Mother Mary, Jesus & etc - to create a situation of affinity for converts from Hindusim and so much more).

I remember during the aftermath of Tsunami in DECEMBER 2004 and how even the uber-anti-hindu 'THE HINDU' newspaper had articles complaining about the menace of Christian Preachers + Women Assistants going aggressively after the affected folks & using relief materials as a hook to get them to convert into Christianity. Even the My-Ears-Were-Bitten-By-Tyson Mr.Evander Holyfield came to Cuddalore, Nagapattinam at that time to sort of look at how their denomination of christianity was doing their 'releief' work in Tsunami Affected areas. I am not lying - you can search on google to find the related news articles.

svenkat · Post by **svenkat** » 06 Dec 2015 20:07

Comer ji,
Cooum broke the bridge in the road connecting Pooviranthavalli(poonamallee) and avadi.

Sridhar K ji,
Good to know that you escaped the ordeal and are safe.

chetak · Post by **chetak** » 06 Dec 2015 20:23

the word samaritan, as is specifically being used in the chennal floods context, is only being used in the generic sense, without any other connotation what so ever.

to attribute any other motives to the thousands of selfless, highly motivated, caring and devoted individuals, pitching in their all, to help their fellow beings and also other animals, is being insulting and grossly unfair.

samaritan is a common enough word, used every day in normal conversation, by ordinary folks.

edited for spelling mistake

Comer · Post by **Comer** » 06 Dec 2015 20:37

svenkat saar

saw that video too
https://www.facebook.com/lashfxmusic/vi ... 357100289/

arshyam · Post by **arshyam** » 06 Dec 2015 20:40

Comer saar, very nice find, TFS. That was some real cool flying, I will share it on other platforms. Btw, was the chopper Army's or the Air Force's? Can't make out from the video.

SwamyG · Post by **SwamyG** » 06 Dec 2015 20:46

DMK and AIADMK goons harassing volunteers. Forcing to put their party emblems on volunteering clothes, posters on vehicles etc. hope some of these goons get soundly trashed.

Cuddalore not having enough relief workers.

arshyam · Post by **arshyam** » 06 Dec 2015 20:47

From FB:

RJ Balaji
3 hrs ·

Spoke to Siddarth who is in Cuddalore.He says 'Cuddalore is almost back to normal.Dont believe rumours, ppl are getting enough supply'.

SwamyG · Post by **SwamyG** » 06 Dec 2015 20:51

Not material, but workers. Saw a post in FB , a girl talking about some kind of besiege in a church.

chaanakya · Post by **chaanakya** » 06 Dec 2015 20:56

BSNL network was working, mostly as I found. Even Landlines except in flooded areas. I put a call for repair and they turned up to fix a broken like and also asked about broadband if it was functioning.

Other numbers were not working majority of time with perhaps sole exception of airtel, as per some tweets and reports. As Mobile towers lost power and fuel ran short they went kaput and when cellphones were mostly needed they were not working. Also charging was a problem when there was no power. I had battery backup 10500ma so could charge till power was restored, which was pretty fast as area is not flooded. But for thousands cellphones were dead as bricks, of no use when there is emergency due to natural calamity.

Some thought should be spared for working out reliability of network in difficult times.

Another thought came to my mind . we should set up centralised control rooms+ backup in each state( with subcontrol rooms) with common emergency number for all types of emergencies. This control room should activate first responders of appropriate services , single or multiple.

On lines of NDRF states should set up SDRF and should be trained to work in close coordination with NDRF and other agencies.

JMHT

SwamyG · Post by **SwamyG** » 06 Dec 2015 21:01

One of my cousin lives in BLR, their apartment complex arranged relief and transportation. Some of these organizers after hearing about Amma photo issue got hold of some and they themselves posted it after entered TN.

chetak · Post by **chetak** » 06 Dec 2015 21:02

arshyam wrote:Comer saar, very nice find, TFS. That was some real cool flying, I will share it on other platforms. Btw, was the chopper Army's or the Air Force's? Can't make out from the video.

not to take away anything from anyone but pilots do this all the time.

guys, that's how high tension cables/pylons are maintained in the gelf, for example.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ix0Gz0ABaI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tzga6qAaBA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh8Zu5_0Am0

SaraLax · Post by **SaraLax** » 06 Dec 2015 21:07

I am coming online only now - almost a week after the deluge & the complete cutting off the city from rest of the world. I am based in K.K.Nagar and on a very 'prime road' - which i discovered this year as something that used to be a small lake some 2 decades before. It was really bad & scary at times since i have a 6 month as well as a 6 year old daughter - to take care off. I ventured through the nearby water filled streets a few times to hunt for veggies/fruits, bread/biscuits/cakes, milk/milk powders, candles, lighters/match boxes & etc. But things were emptying at a never before seen fast rate and i even gave 100 INR to a shop owner - to reserve milk packets for me for the next day - but it didn't work out.

#No Power since last Tuesday morning returned back today morning only after 4+ days. The water pump motors were switched with trepidation hoping it wont run into any issues - since you cant find any worthwhile mechanic in my area right now. But people in general held on firmly with constant prayer in their lips, sharing things around and there was no untoward incident in my flats. But old people in this type of a disastrous, boxed-up living scenario are in a very very bad situation. a 80+ yr old no-so-healthy-lady had to be taken out of our flat through a fish cart (by her resourceful grand children) like vehicle since her other children in the relatively less affected areas of the city were concerned about her getting locked-out in 3 ft stagnant water for many days continuously sans any power/good water/milk and etc.

#No network connection from last Wednesday (BSNL & others) but only Airtel held up through the rains & floods but still was completely jammed.

#No milk since Wednesday (heck - even the tea bars were forced to sell black tea & black coffee at 5 INR for almost 2 days in the middle of this week in my locality). My Milk Vendor, apparently from nearby MGR Nagar, (who drives a Bullet bike & drops milk packets) went missing and I cannot contact him on his cell. But then MGR Nagar is one of the worst affected due to overflowing water from canals channeling water between lakes & the bay of bengal.

#No power & hence no water & so we had to catch rain water in the terrace when it rained & it did rain copiously even yesterday. There were lots of innovative thoughts ... use mouthwash instead of wasting good water when it is running really low, use lighters if no matchboxes are available to light candles and etc.

#My first daughter's private CBSE school has been in holidays since November 7th and the holidays continue further !!. Hopefully she learns something from this disaster even though she is only 6 years old.

#The worst thing was that the TASMAC shop in my heavily flooded locality was open on all days inspite of lack of potable water/milk/power and etc !.

Most of my colleagues with flats & houses in areas south of OMR - have suffered a lot more than other areas of the city.

Chennai will need atleast 1 month period of no-rains & only-sunshine for it to recover to some sort of normalcy. Families are sending away their woman folks & kids to their native places & relative's places outside of Chennai. There is no ticket charges when travelling through state owned buses and certain private omni bus operator run buses too - for a few more days. There is no BSNL service charges for a few more days in Chennai - too.

ADMK should say goodbye to their chances to get re-elected in 2016. AMMA means 'Danger Through Water' for TN (Tsunami last time in 2004 and now Floods in 2015).

chaanakya · Post by **chaanakya** » 06 Dec 2015 21:25

Keeping my fingers crossed as I am scheduled to leave on 7th. Hope Air India operates the flight, even delayed. Due to return when Met dept is predicting heavy rains weekend. Today only Airindia operated five flights. none of the private players were to be seen, while charging high on across other sectors.

chaanakya · Post by **chaanakya** » 06 Dec 2015 21:30

I was offline most of the time I spent in Bihar, patchy connections. though there was no natural calamity except that of RJD getting highest seats in assembly elections.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 06 Dec 2015 21:45

chaanakya wrote:Accuweather link does not work for the folk living in the area.

okay.. only light rains now.. the chance of heavy rain is down to 20-50% during mid-next-week.
current: the radar maps show cloud dissipating now to SL/mid towards Andamans.

chetak, not all helos can do this.

arshyam · Post by **arshyam** » 06 Dec 2015 22:02

chaanakya wrote:Some thought should be spared for working out reliability of network in difficult times.

chaanakya wrote:On lines of NDRF states should set up SDRF and should be trained to work in close coordination with NDRF and other agencies.

Seconded. Mobile networks are the best during flooding/earthquakes etc. as cables can easily be cut/shorted.

Regarding the centralised control rooms, is there a reason why we have had different numbers for different services? Earlier, there was 100 (Police), 101 (Fire?), 103 (Ambulance), now we have 108 (Ambulance), 1088, and various other numbers on top. Makes it confusing and hard to remember, and wastes precious time trying to identify the right agency especially when calling over a congested n/w with low battery. We need an equivalent of 911/999 (US/UK) for all emergency purposes.

arshyam · Post by **arshyam** » 06 Dec 2015 22:07

From FB.

Translation:
The ambulance emergency contact number 108 is experiencing technical difficulties. Please call 044-71709009 as the alternative number till. Also please share this info as much as possible.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 06 Dec 2015 22:31

normally, it is a call routing and forwarding logic. mm.. sounds like networks are down.

we need deploy satellite-based comms as backup for routing ER calls.

Javee · Post by **Javee** » 06 Dec 2015 23:36

I used to be part of the team that implemented 311 in NYC and it's no simple task,given the politics and apathy in our local government. Setting up an integrated call center like 911 is the first hurdle, making it resilient is another. The local govts at massa spend an obscene amount of money to keep it going. Check out DOITT at NYC, the agency responsible for setting up and maintaining this. Even in cities like NYC it was always a touch and go issue. We were able to do 311 because of one guy - Mike Bloomberg. He rammed it down through the city agencies and had tight deadlines and made sure we met them on time.

Javee · Post by **Javee** » 06 Dec 2015 23:39

Arshyam, is that a verified news on 108 ambulance. I didn't see this from any other sources other than whatsapp.

arshyam · Post by **arshyam** » 07 Dec 2015 00:03

No Javee saar, not verified by me personally. So far seen on Twitter, WhatsApp and FB. In any case, it is only an alternative number if the regular one does not work. That's why I posted it.

As for the alternate number, it is the same number that was given last year when the 108 service suffered a disruption.

Both Dinakaran and Tamil The Hindu had reported the same number.
http://www.dinakaran.com/News_Detail.asp?Nid=120896
http://tamil.thehindu.com/tamilnadu/%E0 ... 657677.ece

I will update this post if I am able to get a different source.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 07 Dec 2015 00:03

Javee, comparing with NYC makes Chennai insanely go under any 'under-developed' tag. Impossible.. the DM & ER of NYC is world top class, not even in a single city in India or even Asia can come close. Not even Germany, France or UK.

What we can do is learn from them, and adapt to where we can, using our own home-grown technologies, which is, fortunately, available. But, unfortunately, Amma or K.Nidhi can't make 30-40% cuts because these technologies are under DRDO, BARC, ISRO or other public sector.

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 07 Dec 2015 05:05

My heart goes out to hardy Chennai people. Perhaps the real need, once the clothes are dried out, is to organize these same fantastic communication networks and make sure the likes of Amma and KN are **NEVER AGAIN** allowed to pollute the political leadership. In fact if Amma were dunked repeatedly in the Cooum she would have splashed most of the floodwater into the ocean.

I know I will get hammered for saying this, and it is very insensitive etc etc, but there was no NATURAL calamity in Chennai. All that happened is a downpour for several days that delivered a year's worth of rains. No earthquake. No cyclonic storm. No WMD attack. No epidemic. Yet.

Point is, all those are very possible. It rains in November/December in Chennai. Rains very heavily on some days. Back in 1975 there was a cyclone that seemed headed straight for IIT hostels as per radio report at 1am, when I went to sleep confident that the Design of Machine Elements final exam would be postponed (hopefully cancelled entirely...). Somewhere around 2am it (meaning cyclone not exam) changed course and slammed some 100 miles south of Chennai. Killed 500-1000 people per official estimates, which made it a lot less horrible than the monsters that regularly strike 200 miles north.
The Calamity in Chennai then was that the DME Final Exam went ahead as scheduled, in drenching rain.

Such rain events have occurred in Mumbai fairly recently. Was there any effort in Chennai based on that, to prepare?
So how unlikely is a major cyclone striking Chennai? Or just standing off the coast for a week dumping a deluge? Why can't uber-smart Tamil voters get leaders who insist on good planning for this major city? Times have not been tough in Chennai overall - the problem is burgeoning prosperity with tons of tax money going into the pockets of TN politicians, hain? 10 months of the year, TN and Chennai has drinking water shortage due to poor water reserves. Now ppl are thirsty because of floods, with no provision to take these flood waters inland to groundwater collection areas. Pathetic. Reminds me of the 'Veeranam Water Project" that had its pipes lying at the front gate of IITM from at least early 1970s to late 1980s. Maybe got swept away now.

The subway tunnels appear to have been dug and left exposed in November - based on what engineering, I wonder... So water piped nicely and came shooting out in the middle of major thoroughfares and in residential areas such as AnnaNagar.

This thread is an excellent case study in emergency response - by tough, smart people. Hope it can be turned into something lasting. But all the good knowledge cannot save TN and Chennai until the top political layer is swept into the Cooum and the Buckingham Canal along with the rest of the sewage. The fact that these oiseules were obstructing relief vehicles to stick pictures of the FatAss, is proof enough of the need for sweeping change.

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 07 Dec 2015 05:34

Thinking of something useful to contribute:
1.Preventing and controlling infectious diseases after natural disasters
2.Flooding and Communicable Diseases

3.After the flood:recovery

4. Mostly pompous pakistan but there may be links in there to something useful

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 07 Dec 2015 05:56

Cleaning up after flood (Leeds, UK)

Cleaning Up after a Flood: videos incl

TRY to cover your nose with something while scraping mud - it does dry to power fast. When I used a simple particle mask while scraping up a VERY minor mud layer, the mask was caked dark brown within 30 minutes, all of that would have gone into my lungs otherwise. Also caught infection within 2 days, now on antibiotics. Good news is that the mask can be washed and reused many times.

Flood recovery information North Dakoda State University

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 07 Dec 2015 06:00

UB, It did rain cats and dogs that November. Yes there was a small respite and exams went on schedule much to the chagrin of the students who hoped they would be postponed. Prof. Rayudu for DME?

A UK/US professor wrote a very good book on designing for vulnerability with city flood case in particular. I posted a link in the natural disasters releif thread in Tech Forum after UttaraKhand flood. Will post here also. Basically he says think of your vulnerability. think of your hazards. When a vulnerability meets a hazard it leads to a disaster. So need to have a systematics study of all your vulnerabilities without ruling out any thing. Same with a listing of all your hazards and then do a matrix to see where the potential disasters can occur. He says most cost benefit studies are BS as one disaster will cost much much more than all the costs to prevent it. So better implement your proactive plan to mitigate the disaster.

My take is this applies to every situation in life and not just rural/urban planning.

PS: Take care to complete the full course of antibiotics.

SriKumar · Post by **SriKumar** » 07 Dec 2015 06:39

This text is from the following article linked by SaiK. I thought it was worth posting the text directly in the thread.

http://www.abplive.in/india-news/chenna ... els-255524

Summary:
One reason why areas far away from Adayar river got flooded (and the water did not drain away quickly)... The metro tunnel goes above ground near Saidapet bridge, right next to ADayar river. Once Adayar burst its banks, water went into metro tunnels and flowed along the tunnels into central parts of the city. (My kament: However, per this theory, only those areas/streets that are below Adayar river's flood level would get flooded- with rain water AND river water. So storm water drains will have a much larger amount of water to deal with, and if partially blocked, flood water will take more time to drain).

Chennai: Chennai’s floods had a secret weapon this time – the tunnels of the city Metro’s yet-to-be-operational underground section.
Waters from the swollen Adyar and Cooum rivers found their way into these under-construction tunnels and inundated areas unaffected by previous floods, taking city planners and Metro engineers by surprise.
A part of the Metro’s tracks leaves the underground section to climb onto the Saidapet bridge over the Adyar. So, when the river overflowed its banks, the big hole that was the Metro tunnel proved an entry channel.
The water coursed through the tunnels right up to the heart of the arterial road, Anna Salai, where the approach for three Metro stations had been dug.
For the first time, the central and south Chennai neighbourhoods of Alwarpet, Teynampet and T. Nagar were under sloshing rainwater.
“Floodwaters in Chennai usually stagnate for a day but this time they have entered new areas and are staying put,” S. Ramakrishnan of Sriram Nagar observed.
A senior railway official whose Alwarpet home is flooded, with his two cars submerged in the basement, said this had never happened before and the only reason could be the Metro tunnel.
“Metro officials admitted they had not anticipated such a turn of events, since the Adyar’s earlier flood history showed it had swirled over the bridge only once in 1986, that too for just a few hours.”
Residential areas like Anna Nagar and Shenoy Nagar, below which another underground segment of the Metro runs, too experienced floodwaters at doorsteps for the first time.
A Metro engineer said a way had to be found to prevent a repeat that could prove disastrous once the underground section becomes operational.

And this is that area where the tunnel goes above ground- right next to Adayar river.

The flat 'road' on the left covered with flowing water is the Saidapet road bridge over Adayar. The above-water bridge on the right is the metro bridge. The far end of it is where water probably entered the metro system.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 07 Dec 2015 06:40

Chennai should now go about spraying the whole city with insecticides on clogged water-bodies and fogging activities.

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 07 Dec 2015 06:50

Coastal Tamil Nadu to stay mostly wet until weekend - Business Line

The southern parts of the peninsula, especially the South-East (Tamil Nadu) coast, are expected to see above-normal showers until this weekend.

This is attributed to the presence of ‘low-pressure’ systems in the seasonal easterly winds across Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, an outlook from the Pune-based Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology said.

The above-normal showers would later become near-normal rains and hold on until December 11, up to which forecasts are available.

Starting Sunday, this would represent an intermittently wet regime for the coast for the next five days.

The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts too indicates the presence of a trough in the South-West Bay of Bengal for most of the time until December 16 up to which its forecasts are available.

The presence of a trough is more than sufficient to maintain the easterly flows across coastal Tamil Nadu and Puducherry and trigger rain or thundershowers.

This was abundantly made clear during the two peak-rain periods of November 15-16 and December 2-3.

Only, the intensity and the punishing nature of the spells would be missing in future appearances.

Meanwhile, the Chennai Met Centre said that a rain-driving low-pressure area has moved entirely out from the South-West Bay of Bengal to the Comorin area.

But the parent ‘trough’ (within which ‘low’s take birth) continues to make its presence felt in the South-West Bay, off the Tamil Nadu coast.

SwamyG · Post by **SwamyG** » 07 Dec 2015 07:38

It looks like Jaya TV has been pretending that there was no storm until their studio was flooded. It was like the Iraqi joker who routinely gave news conferences about Baghdad being safe from AmirKhan troops, and the viewers could see rockets behind his shoulders.

Now there is some news about TN obstructing the Army. I just hope MuKa and JJ never come near the power corridors for ever. Politicians are taking a big hit. Rajinikanth is taking a hit for not being visible. Lots of small time cine artists have become pillars of local community with their outreach. Kudos to them.

Madras being a flat area requires good drainage to remove the used and excess water. Just like New Orleans drew attention because of one disaster, Madras has drawn attention about two broad areas of urban life in cities that have multi-millions.
1. Urban planning & development.
2. Disaster relief.

In both cases, people do not have the best information to make sound decisions. Bangalore and Madras have known for decades that their water bodies have been disappearing. Neither the public nor the planners & politicians cared or could really do anything - especially with the abnormal growth of India in the last two decades. Marshes and low lying areas were converted to residential and commercial real estate properties.

The population was sitting on a bumb that just had to be ignited. It did not require a 'natural calamity', a 'simple' rain that dumped 1 month's water on 1 day was enough to bring the system to a standstill. Once in a century event happened and grabbed the attention.

These once in a lifetime or century events are occurring everywhere. With the huge population, if every region of the country sees even one such event, it brings takleef to millions in a jiffy. Madras has been lucky as cyclones dump Cuddalore/Pondicherry or Nellore/Ongle. We Madrasis were so relieved to see the cyclones missing us.

I thought Neeya Nana program had the best discussion on the subject matter. If this program is to be believed, only the new development areas were hit the max, the old parts of Madras did not suffer that much. While people wondered and criticized the people in America for living on coastal regions that had frequent hurricanes, or even scratched the nuts thinking why would New Orleans be built with all the weird engineering. What was the necessity, huh? Similar questions are not asked for the likes of Chennai.

Heard Coovum is cleaner these days.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 07 Dec 2015 08:10

^link?
--

It is a fishbone always.. and still Amma will be back for the next rain disaster relief ops too. /sorry, Vikas (which is subjective and related to TN context) is not related to politics here.

mazhai ninraal, ammavin thendral veesum.
ettanai mazhai peidalum, makkalin votu ammvikke!

40% clout summava?
pudiya constructions thudanga padum very soon

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 07 Dec 2015 08:22

imo this disaster gives political and social cover to any right thinking politician/planner to get much needed demolition and construction done, which would otherwise not be possible due to vote bank issues.

but they have to approach it with a builder mentality , not slum lord mentality.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 07 Dec 2015 08:27

its easy to blame Amma but the other formation would have more or less fared the same. I shudder to think what the current INC crew in blr would have done had blr been in the line of fire. would be a lot worse for sure.

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 07 Dec 2015 08:49

the FB video of the rescue is not working. here's the youtube version.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1rMCjemwHU

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 07 Dec 2015 08:55

SwamyG, Since 2012 this forum has been documenting yearly rain based disasters. See the India and Natural Disaster response thread in tech forum.
Even in last three years we had rain based disasters Cyclone Phailin in UttaraKhand in 2013, Vishakapatnam in 2014, now Chennai in 2015.

As UB reminds us of the 1975 cyclone and later 1977 cyclone that hit Andhra Coast.

IOW East Coast India is rain disaster prone with effects all the way to UttaraKhand.

Yet MET and GOI get surprised due to ad hoc response mechanism in Indian Civil Services. Perspective planning is shunned as every officer wants kudos for having saved the world!!!

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 07 Dec 2015 09:03

swamyg, the online copies of the show is taken off.. don't know how much of political pressure they had to remove it. do you have any links? there were 3 parts and I got to see only 1/3, and the rest were taken off/blocked/content removed.

the gentleman-doctor-planner was talking with pin-point accuracy against builders and the corrupted license raj setup, and then the part 2, 3 went missing. let me know if you have any link?

If amma wishes, she has the power to deny building constructions against MMDA norms. that was the take!

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 07 Dec 2015 09:05

Why Chennai went down and under - Radhika Merwin, Business Line

The biggest reason for such damage was the excessive, unprecedented flow (over 80000 cusecs at times) in the Adyar river from the Chembarambakkam reservoir. The second and equally important reason was the encroachments on the Adyar and the various lakes in South & West Chennai regions. Dozens of lakes and their watershed areas have disappeared. In places where drainage does not exist, the ground had lost ability to absorb any more water because of the continuous wet spell for over a month. It has been raining since late October. This is the problem in these areas now because the water will take some time to drain now. They were showing on TV about how burials of dead bodies are difficult because water springs like a fountain even at two feet depth.

Sitting ducks

Chennai is no stranger to heavy rains and cyclonic storms. The state of Tamil Nadu has been frequently subjected to cyclonic storms and flooding. The CAG report states that between 1900 and 2009, there were 50 cyclonic storms and, on an average, the State faces one or two severe cyclones during the northeast monsoon period. The low pressure and depression last for days, leading to heavy rainfall and flooding of vulnerable areas. It is inexcusable, then, that there was no disaster preparedness plan. According to the CAG report, the SDMA, constituted in 2008, did not meet even once, nor were State disaster management rules prepared.

Even as Chennai city got some respite, there was excessive discharge of water from Chembarambakkam lake — the reservoir had been in surplus because of the heavy rainfall. The sudden discharge that came without warning displaced even more people from their homes. Much of the devastation and chaos could have been averted had the authorities altered the residents beforehand.

One of the reasons why this may not have happened is because a large number of reservoirs and barrages in the country are not monitored at all for their water levels {That is not true for the Metrowaater lakes like Chembarambakkam. However, warning doesn't seem to have been issued in time. At the same time, water did not just hurt the people on the banks of the Adyar but also far away in the Airport, for example}. The CAG report states that only eight States out of 29 had prepared emergency action plans for 192 large dams as against a total of 4,728 large dams as of September 2011. The ministry of water resources had not formulated an actionable plan for the management of floods in accordance with NDMA guidelines. There were 4,728 reservoirs and barrages in the country as of September 2011. The Central Water Commission, responsible for conservation and utilisation of water resources in the States, provided inflow forecasts with respect to only 28 reservoirs and barrages.

Ineffective response

Let us look at the response systems. It is true that the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) formed as a special force to deal with all types of disasters, has been initiating massive rescue operations in the last couple of days in Chennai. But despite such elaborate efforts, you still hear appalling stories of families stranded in their homes for days without food or water, with no rescue in sight. The answer may lie in the inadequate and ineffective resources of the NDRF.

According to news reports, though there was a clear forecast of heavy rainfall, the State government requisitioned only a few teams of the NDRF. Had there been adequate forces, rescue operations would have been more effective. The shortage of manpower and inadequate specialised training are concerns that are highlighted in the CAG report. Also, the national policy on disaster management 2009 provided that the primary responsibility for disaster management rested with the States.

Nothing’s unavoidable

The aim was for each State to equip and train one battalion equivalent force known as the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF). According to the CAG report, till June 2012, only seven States had set up the force — Bihar, Odisha, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, J&K and Nagaland. The need for every State to have its own SDRF team in place is evident from the hurdles the NDRF teams are facing now in Chennai. As many of these teams were called in from the north, the Hindi-speaking personnel have been unable to communicate with distressed residents. Also, precious time was lost in understanding the topography and receiving logistical support from local agencies; this impeded rescue operations.

Chennai and the 2013 disaster in Uttarakhand are clear wake-up calls. It is critical that effective disaster managing mechanisms are put in place to reduce the risks and damage from disasters to the maximum extent possible.

See here for Lake levels

vina · Post by **vina** » 07 Dec 2015 09:13

Prof. Rayudu for DME

OT. Great man.Taught me as well. Died under tragic circumstances when he had a heart attack while riding his scooter on the roads in~~Chennai~~ Madras (I can never call it that name) and no one came to his rescue quickly enough.