Cars and bikes in posh apartment buildings washed away, crocodiles were spotted crossing the roads, people wading through waist-high water holding their valuables close to their chests, and families were being rescued in boats.
For the residents of Chennai, last week served as a horrid reminder of the 2015 floods, when Tamil Nadu’s capital was similarly inundated. However, there are stark differences. The 2015 floods were a manmade disaster, while this one resulted from the fury of nature, brought about by Cyclone Michaung.
In 2015, the city and its people were ravaged, causing 199 deaths. In comparison, while the residents suffered damages this time as well, the city battled the situation better, experiencing only a fraction of the casualties seen during the 2015 disaster.
And unlike 2015, which severely impacted only some pockets of the city, the 2023 deluge did not spare anyone. Even the posh Poes Garden area, home to influential families such as that of former chief minister J Jayalalithaa and actor Rajinikanth, was battered by the torrent. Actors Aamir Khan and Vishnu Vishal had to be rescued on a boat in Karapakkam.
How the 2023 floods were handled indicates that Chennai has learned some lessons from past disasters. However, there are still longer-term issues in basic urban planning and infrastructure creation that the city seems to have overlooked. This is why the Chennai floods are ThePrint’s Newsmaker of the Week.
Better than 2015
In 2015, the crisis began when the Chembarambakkam reservoir reached a near full capacity. Instead of releasing water in a phased manner following torrential rain, officials released 29,400 cusecs of water on 1 December 2015 into the Adyar River, compared to the mere 900 cusecs released until then. This resulted in heavy flooding, particularly in southern Chennai, which is in the path of the Adyar River.
The 2023 deluge was triggered by a cyclone originating as a low depression in the Bay of Bengal. The first warning was issued by the India Meteorological Department (IMD) on 29 November, followed by instructions to fishermen and people in the coastal region to move to safer zones. The timely warning, preparedness efforts, and the evacuation of people from low-lying areas contributed to keeping the number of casualties to 20 as of 8 December. Additionally, the state discharged water from the four major reservoirs—Chembarambakkam, Poondi, Red Hills, and Cholavaram—in a phased manner.
The advisories helped the MK Stalin-led government to prepare for the worst. It set up relief camps and deployed motor pumps, JCBs, and tree-cutting equipment. Stalin issued instructions to ministers and MLAs, assigning specific areas for close monitoring and relief work.
Government emergency helpline numbers were widely circulated to report waterlogging, seek boat and ambulance services, and rescue animals. Social media was also abuzz with messages from residents and ministers, and officials from the DMK-ruled Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) and district police officials were seen responding to requests for relief and essentials.
Weather experts noted that the heavy downpour was attributed to the super cyclone remaining stationary at 90km east of Chennai for more than eight hours.
In the 36 hours from 3 December to 5 December, several locations in Chennai, such as Meenambakkam, recorded an average rainfall of 430 mm, Perungudi 440 mm, Nungambakkam 470 mm, Tambaram 410 mm, Chembarambakkam 370 mm, and Avadi 560 mm.
The 2023 floods were many shades worse than the 2015 one. The cyclone brought in rain intensity not seen in 47 years.
“In 2015, areas in Chennai like Jafferkhanpet, Nandanam, Ashok Nagar, and West Mambalam saw excessive flooding due to the Chembarambakkam water release, but this time around, these areas have not seen as much flooding and the draining out of stagnant water has also been faster,” weather blogger K Srikanth told ThePrint.
He pointed out that Cyclone Michaung and severe storm surge and high tide caused a reverse flow, which delayed the carrying of stormwater into the river and the sea. “This is a natural problem and only when the storm surge reduces will the water drain out.”
The DMK government attributes the improved management of the floods to a Rs 4,000-crore stormwater drain project implemented in Chennai in a phased manner since 2021. According to GCC, the Integrated Storm Water Drain (ISWD) project’s first phase that cost Rs 1,387 crore covered the Adyar and Cooum basins, spanning a length of 406 km, and was completed with funds from the World Bank under the Tamil Nadu Sustainable Urban Development Project (TNSUDP).
In the Kovalam Basin, covering a length of 360 km, the project cost Rs 1,714 crore with funding from KfW, a German development bank. In the Kosasthalaiyar Basin, a project spanning 769 km funded under the Asian Development Bank (ADB), is expected to be finished by March 2024.
The opposition, however, has been sceptical about the government’s claims, with the AIADMK demanding a white paper on the floods. The BJP state president K Annamalai said that once the city returns to normalcy, the DMK will have to answer “several hard questions on the stormwater drains.”
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Larger issue
Despite better management and fewer casualties, the DMK government was not able to handle the aftermath of the 2023 floods as efficiently.
As of Thursday evening, close to 18,780 people continue to stay in relief centres across four districts. Several parts of Chennai, Chengalpattu, Kancheepuram, and Tiruvallur are still inundated, four days after Cyclone Michaung crossed the state. Tamil Nadu chief secretary Shiv Das Meena said on Thursday evening that 343 places continue to remain waterlogged.
Four days after the cyclone struck, residents in flooded apartments are still sending out SOS messages, requesting boats for evacuation, essential supplies such as drinking water, milk, food, and a faster means of draining out water.
Chennai is naturally prone to high rainfall, but some systemic issues contributing to floods have been ignored by successive governments as the city expands, encroaching upon its rivers and marshlands.
In a PIL filed after the 2015 floods in the Madras High Court, the Water Resources Department noted that the area of 19 major lakes in the city had shrunk from 1,130 hectares to nearly 645 hectares. In September this year, a division bench of Justice S Vaidyanathan and Justice K Rajasekar called the encroachers “traitors of the nation”, and warned the state that if it doesn’t take appropriate action, the court “will be constrained to pass appropriate orders to use military force” to remove the encroachers.
The Comptroller and Auditor General of India General and Social Sector report of 2017 revealed rampant encroachment of road margins in Chennai, “with an average of 3.4 incidences of encroachments per kilometre of road length, went largely unchecked due to inaction on the part of Greater Chennai Corporation.” The report also highlighted that encroachments on water bodies accounted for 49 per cent of the total objectionable encroachments.
The scary images of cars being washed away in Pallikaranai, inundation in Kovilambakkam, Velachery, and Madipakkam, and the water stagnation in certain areas as of Friday are all classic examples of an uncontrolled concretisation in Chennai.
In 2019, an amicus curiae appointed by the Madras High Court had noted in his report that the Pallikaranai Marshland, which is the only urban wetland in the city, had shrunk to a mere 600 hectares in 2013 from 5,500 hectares in 1965. Now it’s facing nature’s fury, made worse by the encroachment.