Chennai, the capital of the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, has been limping back to normal after torrential rains flooded the metropolis almost the whole of last week. Tens of thousands of people were marooned with supply of electricity, drinking water and essential commodities cut off. The airport and railway lines were flooded and flights and trains were cancelled.
As water receded, bodies were found in flats and houses. It is, by all accounts, one of the worst experiences the people of Chennai had. It would be impossible to quantify in monetary terms the loss the state has suffered. Millions of man hours and business worth billions of dollars were lost.
It will take months to restore normalcy in the city where the receding waters have left slush and filth everywhere. Two thousand additional sanitary staff from other towns have reportedly been brought in to clean Chennai.
If there is one agency which failed during the days of devastation, it was the state government. It could hardly do anything as most of its officials were themselves affected.
Editorial writers and opinion-makers have lauded the citizens for the fortitude with which they faced the calamitous situation. But, then, what else could they have done? This is not to underestimate the splendid work some non-government organisations and concerned citizens have done to ameliorate the suffering of the people.
They used social media to generate awareness and link those needy of relief with those who wanted to provide it. The cadres of the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) who are always ready to fight for Chief Minister Jayalalithaa were there only to paste posters of the chief minister on trucks carrying relief from neighbouring states like Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.
True, the rains were heavy but were the rains the only reason for the floods in Chennai? The answer is in the negative. As it is, even half an hour of downpour can flood many roads in Chennai.
This is because the drainage system is either missing or is in a state of disrepair. Most of the time, the drains remain choked with plastics and other solid waste materials routinely dumped into them.
There has been a haphazard growth with skyscrapers coming up all over the city with little planning for waste disposal. The real estate mafia is so powerful that it can make mincemeat of all master plans. Little surprise that residential colonies were allowed to come up in low-lying areas adjacent to the reservoir from which water is supplied to the city.
And when the water-level in the reservoir crossed the danger mark, the authorities had no option but to release the excess water endangering those living on its banks. In fact, the maximum death and destruction were reported from these areas.
In the late-seventies similar floods caused enormous loss in Patna, the capital of Bihar. When the Army authorities feared that water from the Ganga would enter their cantonment area, they opened the embankment flooding the city. Phenomena like tsunami, earthquake and cloudbursts are not preventable. They can occur at anytime and anywhere.
For instance, Kerala witnessed the worst-ever floods in 1924 when hundreds of people and thousands of cattle were washed away by the flooded rivers. At that time the area where the Kochi international airport is now situated was under deep water.
Anyone who has seen the unplanned growth of cities like Bengaluru can easily imagine what would be the situation in case of heavy rains like in Chennai.
Yet, it is doubtful whether any long-term planning would be done to improve infrastructural facilities so that the rain water is allowed to raise the underground water tables and the rest allowed to flow into rivers, reservoirs and the sea. The Chennai floods proved the inadequacy of the national disaster management system, which supposedly has the capacity to meet any such eventualities.
What happened in Chennai can happen in any city in India. In the past, it happened in Mumbai and Kolkata, to name just two.
This is all the more reason that lessons are learnt from the Chennai experience and steps taken to mitigate the hardship of the people whenever and wherever the skies open up as they did in the southern metropolis.
Courtesy: Oman Tribune