Heard what
happened in Chennai, India's 4th largest metro? Wouldn't be surprised if
the answer's no or at least not enough. After all, it's about
unprecedented floods, that too in South India, not in Delhi or Mumbai.
As well, clearly nothing to do with terrorism, and everything to do with
a lethal mix of non-existent city planning, and rampant big business
and government corruption. So there you have it, heavy rains pounding it
already since mid-November, this city of ~7 to 9 million received so
much rain on 1st December, 2015 that it broke a record set in 1918, its
English National news daily, the Hindu, unable to publish a print
edition for the 1st time since 1878. As heavy rains continued
incessantly, Chennai then became marooned for about a day and a half,
i.e., no flights, trains or buses going in or coming out. Plus no power,
no cell phone service. However, the rains didn't bring this marvelous,
beloved city to its knees. No, unrestrained, unplanned growth did. A
coastal town on the Bay of Bengal, Chennai's flat as a pancake. Who in
their right mind builds office parks, even an IT corridor, in flood
plains? Yet, over the past decade, the flood plains areas around Rajiv Gandhi Salai became home to spanking new office parks housing the likes of corporate giants such as Cognizant, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, while East Coast Road became the site of unrestrained housing construction, all underwater or recently underwater as I write this.
No, not the fig-leaf of climate change, A to Z this was a human-made disaster
With
an average elevation of only 6.7 meters above sea level (1, 2), and
many neighborhoods actually at sea level, Chennai's water drainage is
challenging even in the best of times.
In
actuality, Chennai is really a conglomeration of a bunch of overgrown
villages that merged and grew beyond, of course only in 3 directions,
North, West and South. The Bay of Bengal to the East precludes growth in
that direction. Each of these villages used to have its temple with a
water tank used for water storage. Inlets leading to such tanks and
surrounding lakes would be kept open. As the city grew, these tanks and
lakes shrank from ~650 to ~27. As Geeta Doctor writes, 'The areas
least affected by the floods were the older parts of the city, where
temple tanks remembered their history and culverts and drains
constructed in the 19th century managed to find ways to carry the
overflow' (2).
'The Virugambakkam drain, which was 6.5 km long and drained into the Nungambakkam tank, is now present only for an of extent
of 4.5 km. The remaining two km stretch of the drain is missing.
Nungambakkam tank was filled and built. This along with the loss of
Koyambedu drain has resulted in the periodic flooding of Koyambedu and
Virugambakkam areas' (3).
This
phenomenon is now repeating in the suburbs. The surplus channels
connecting various waterbodies in western suburbs such as Ambattur and
Korattur have been encroached upon. The waterbody in Mogappair has
almost disappeared. Lake beds often serve as make shift dumping yards
and cesspool. This has resulted in inundation of neighbouring
localities. The Veerangal Odai that connects the Adambakkam lake with
Pallikaranai marsh ends abruptly after 550 m from its origin and the
remaining part is not to be seen. This causes inundation in places such
as Puzhithivakkam and Madipakkam' (3).
S.
Mohan, professor, Environment and Water Resources Engineering, IIT
Madras, cautions that loss of waterbodies and channels not only induced
flood but also increased saltwater intrusion. As a thumb rule, he said, every one metre of water-head in a water body can push sea water laterally by 40 meters' (3). Note the date of this report (3), June 2011. No plausible deniability possible for the powers-that-be.
'The
corporation began storm water drain projects across 31 canals and four
major drainage basins, namely Kosasthalaiyar, Cooum, Adyar and Kovalam,
promising to remodel 183 kilometres of drains and construct 321
kilometres of new drains. Multiple deadlines later, it hasn’t reached
the halfway mark. The cost has crossed Rs 5,000 crore, on various
components of the projects, but change is hard to gauge (4).
“So
far nearly 140 kilometres of the storm water project are complete and
progress is made for the rest,” Paranthaman says. “It’s a better
situation today than it was in 2005 or even last year. The corporation
is a large entity; things cannot happen overnight.” (4).
The
drains are only a part of the story. “These are temporary patches,”
says Arpan Sundaresan, a professor of water mapping and management who
has done extensive research on Chennai’s water management. “Canals and
rivers need to be widened, drains to be connected to water bodies.
Concrete roads tend to waterlog faster. Things get worse when marshlands
are encroached for construction. You can’t ignore these issues and
simply focus on one aspect of a huge problem.” (4). Will someone
demand from the aforesaid Paranthaman, zonal officer, Zone VIII,
Corporation of Chennai, an explanation for his parlous statements to the
contrary? Probably not. After all, we've habituated civic officials and
politicians to never expect to be held accountable, especially so in
India.
'Today, Chennai has a host of
expensive infrastructure aimed at ushering in a “Make in Chennai” boom –
a brand-new (though leaky) airport built on the floodplains
of the River Adyar, a sprawling bus terminal in flood-prone Koyambedu, a
Mass Rapid Transit System constructed almost wholly over the Buckingham
Canal and the Pallikaranai marshlands, expressways and bypass roads
constructed with no mind to the tendency of water to flow, an IT
corridor and a Knowledge Corridor consisting of engineering colleges
constructed on waterbodies, and automobile and telecom SEZs and gated
residential areas built on important drainage courses and catchments' (5).
The
case of the Pallikaranai marshlands, which drains water from a
250-squarekilometre catchment, is telling. Not long ago, it was a
50-square-kilometre water sprawl in the southern suburbs of Chennai.
Now, it is 4.3 square kilometres – less than a tenth of its original.
The growing finger of a garbage dump sticks out like a cancerous tumour
in the northern part of the marshland. Two major roads cut through the
waterbody with few pitifully small culverts that are not up to the job
of transferring the rain water flows from such a large catchment. The
edges have been eaten into by institutes like the National Institute of
Ocean Technology. Ironically, NIOT is an accredited consultant to
prepare Environmental Impact Assessments on various subjects, including
on the implications of constructing on waterbodies' (5).
Virtually every one of the flood-hit areas can be linked to ill-planned construction.
The Chennai Bypass connecting NH45 to NH4 blocks the east flowing
drainage causing flooding in Anna Nagar, Porur, Vanagaram, Maduravoyal,
Mugappair and Ambattur. The Maduravoyal lake has shrunk from 120
acres to 25. Ditto with Ambattur, Kodungaiyur and Adambakkam tanks. The
Koyambedu drain and the surplus channels from Korattur and Ambattur
tanks are missing. Sections of the Veerangal Odai connecting
Adambakkam tank to Pallikaranai are missing. The South Buckingham Canal
from Adyar creek to Kovalam creek has been squeezed from its original
width of 25 metres to 10 metres in many places due to the Mass Rapid
Transit System railway stations. Important flood retention structures
such as Virugambakkam, Padi and Villivakkam tanks are officially
abandoned' (5). As I wrote already, who in their right minds builds on floodplains?
'The
sewage system in Chennai was originally designed for a population of
0.65 million at 114 litres per capita per day of water supply; it was
further modified during 1989–1991, but is now much below the required
capacity'. Even more appallingly, 'The city has only 855 km of storm drains against 2847 km of urban roads'
(6). Inevitable insult to injury? Banks of all three major water
bodies, the Adyar and Cooum rivers, and the Buckingham Canal are heavily encroached.
Replaced by concrete (7), green covers in some city wards have reduced
by ~99%, drastically reducing the city's water-holding capacity as well
(6).
'Pallikaranai marshland covered 50
sq km in 2001, now it’s 4.3 sq km. Maduravoyal lake shrunk from 120 to
25 acres. Excess rain had nowhere to drain. Authorities had abandoned
retention canals too, further compounding floods' (8).
To
top off the litany of human-made woes, everywhere, indiscriminate
garbage, especially plastic, especially in storm water drains. No
mystery about the outcome. Floods and inundations more likely (9, 10).
Research by the Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) shows (11),
- Of the >600 waterbodies in the 1960s, only a fraction were healthy in 2008.
- The State's Water Resources Department's records show that 19 major lakes had shrunk from 1, 130 hectares in the 1980s to ~645 by the early 2000s.
- Chennai's aquifers are depleted.
And
it's not as though others haven't published careful risk-assessment of
rains and floods in Chennai (12, 13). Again, no plausible deniability
for politicians, city planners, bureaucrats and big business corporates.
News Media coverage of the 2015 South Indian Floods: A total washout
First
time I saw BBC World news cover the story of the unprecedented Chennai
Floods was on December 5, 2015, in its 1PM US Eastern time broad-cast. A
brief interview with the Chennai City Commissioner. I timed the
coverage. ~ 2 minutes. The 2PM broadcast? No coverage at all. An oil rig
explosion in the Caspian Sea took precedence. Of course both times the
US 2015 San Bernardino shooting
took most of the air-time. US news media? Never expected them to cover
it anyway just as I never expect them to cover real global news, only
sensationalist crimes and terrorist attacks. Meantime, death tolls from
the 2015 South Indian Rains is twice that of the Paris attacks and counting.
India's so-called
national news media. Why so-called? You know there's a story there.
So-called because Chennai floods patently proved, at least to me, that
India lacks a national news media. I saw English news channels start
covering the story but only sporadically and desultorily. Timing of
their coverage is telling. Started to happen when reports began coming
out of an ~100-year old record being broken and TV channels could beam
images of grubby, 'foreign visitors' stranded at the flooded
Chennai airport (8). The modern 24X7 news cycle is verily an insatiable
beast, sensationalism bred into its very marrow. Accountability and
accurate information? Laughably idealistic concepts, so passe and
irrelevant. Not just that, the old North-South divide I grew up in is
still very much alive and kicking. Mumbai 2008 terror attacks? 24X7
coverage not just locally but also internationally. Chennai Floods 2015?
Perfunctory, lip-service coverage and quickly move on to the real news,
either Rahul Gandhi's newfound aggression or Delhi's smog or the never-endingly sensational turns in the Sheena Bora murder case for national news agencies, or the 2015 San Bernardino shooting
incident for international news agencies. Only local dailies like the
Hindu and vernacular press (Dinamalar, Dinamani, Dina Thanthi, etc.),
and online magazines like the Scroll and the Wire sustained the yeoman
effort of wall-to-wall flood news coverage.
Why
am I harping so much about unforgivably lamentable national and
international news coverage of this unprecedented disaster in Chennai?
The press is rightfully called the Fourth Estate, ideally holding
accountable the administration, legislature and judiciary. Sustained
coverage of the scale and details of the disaster unfolding since
December 1 is the only means to put unrelenting pressure on
powers-that-be to deliver, i.e., deliver timely succor, relief,
rehabilitation and explanations. For e..g., what did the Jayalalithaa-led State Government and Narendra Modi-led
Central Government do on Dec 1 and 2, 2015? To all intents and
purposes, sat with their thumbs stuck firmly up their asses. After all,
there was no substantial media coverage to stoke public outrage that in
one fell swoop, millions in India's 4th largest metro had been relegated
to the medieval age.
Irony is we're globally connected as never before, at least in theory, and yet global news coverage has likely never been as abysmal
as it is today. Certainly the internet has democratized many aspects of
society but the downside is more information doesn't equal better or accurate
information. Accurate, vetted information's gasping and struggling to
make itself heard through all the noise. Forget about knowledge, that's
left behind at the starting line. Surfeit of technology yoked to deficit
of wisdom, in public, corporate and individual life. Such a most unholy
recipe for epic disaster only makes future episodes more inevitable.
Disasters inevitably stir into prominence Human Nature's Ugly Underbelly and How
- Public officials bullying relief supply workers to stick Chief Minister Jayalalithaa's photo on relief supply packages (14, 15), throwing much-needed relief supplies into the river rather than allow volunteers to deliver without political patronage (16).
- Corporates such as Zomato and Uber (company) preying on desperation to make a quick buck (17).
- Individuals stockpiling diesel fuel to illegally sell at exorbitant prices, 'ordinary white candles, normally sold for Rs.5 to Rs.10 apiece, retailed for a little over Rs.50, with shopkeepers warning that prices would skyrocket over Rs.80 in the coming days', affluent folk fleeing in droves if not outright out of the city then to 3rd, 4th and 5th star hotels, gated communities pumping water out of their underground car parks into neighboring communities, thoughtlessly flooding them (18), I could go on and on. And as usual, leaving their pets to their own miserable fate, enough affluent folk who patently don't deserve their material bounty (19).
All shame, no decency.
Even more ominous? 2015 South Indian floods doesn't cite any data since November 18 for water- and vector-borne diseases
(20). As my brother pointed out, official sources are being lax, maybe
deliberately so, in divulging data on disease outbreaks. Already, his
friends and neighbors active in the NGO arena are inundated with calls
and texts requesting Clioquinol and Enteral administration, commonly used for treating symptoms of GI tract infections.
Social Media: Spontaneous Voice and Will of Decent Chennaites
Many reports asked, 'where's the government?'.
As Indians know all too well, less is better where the government's
concerned. After all, the civic authority's so inept and corrupt, they
kept even the heroic military and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) waiting (21) or forced them to rescue relatives of VIPs at the cost of ordinary citizens (16).
Apart
from the military and NDRF, volunteer- and social media-driven efforts
have kept Chennai from drowning completely (22, 23) . As I write this on
Dec 6, 2015, going by their Twitter feeds, some such as RJ Balaji and Siddharth (actor) seem to be awake since Dec 1, 2015.
#Chennaimicro, #chennaimicro hashtag on Twitter, #ChennaiRainsHelp, #ChennaiRainsHelp - Twitter Search, #ChennaiRains, #chennairains - Twitter Search, and region-wise statuses on Google docs, Area and Road Updates,
these, and not official sources, offer a real-time snapshot of
on-the-ground situation in Chennai. Unfortunately, it's even more
difficult to separate facts from noise in social media.
Unlike the widespread looting and violence of post-Hurricane Katrina
New Orleans, Chennai's millions suffered stoically and largely
non-violently. A few scuffles broke out between gated communities and
individual house owners when the former thoughtlessly drained their
underground car parks (18). Poorer North Chennai, ever the step-child,
saw some spontaneous protests at delays in relief (24). No looting, no
deaths through violence, at least none reported in local or social
media. In the face of unbearable pressure, the immeasurable restraint
and dignity of ordinary Chennaites brings tears to my eyes.
Another
story to restore faith in humanity? During a brief respite at the
height of the rains, my brother ventured out for necessities when a
little van pulled up. Some volunteers got out, took out pans, placed
them on the sidewalk and poured out freshly cooked food. Apparently
familiar with the drill, stray dogs gathered around and ate. The
volunteers patiently waited until they finished, then poured clean water
for them to drink, again waited until they finished drinking, then
cleaned up, packed up and moved on. He spoke to the volunteers but
unfortunately, he forgot the name of the NGO doing this. Such people are
angels on earth.
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Anil K., and Sreeja S. Nair. "Urban floods in Bangalore and Chennai:
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