What's new

Chennai floods are not a natural disaster—they been created by greedy town planner and dumb engineer

Beast

ELITE MEMBER
Joined
Feb 5, 2011
Messages
30,390
Reaction score
-51
Country
China
Location
China
Chennai floods are not a natural disaster—they’ve been created by greedy town planners and dumb engineers - Quartz

Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa’s response to the floods in Tamil Nadu is frightening.




A report in NDTV quotes her as saying, “Losses are unavoidable when there’s very heavy rain. Swift rescue and relief alone are indicators of a good government.” These words are intended to normalise a human-made disaster, and gloss over the pathology of urban development under successive administrations.




It is quite usual for politicians and civic officials to blame so-called unprecedented rains for the civic and humanitarian crisis each monsoon brings, and decouple development from disaster. But unprecedented rains occur quite regularly in Chennai. As a city on the high-energy coast facing the Bay of Bengal, Chennai is no stranger to heavy rains and cyclonic storms. Chennai has experienced particularly heavy rains roughly once every 10 years—1969, 1976, 1985, 1996, 1998, 2005, 2015.




In fact, in 1976, Adyar river overflowed its banks and invaded first-floor houses. But those were the days when Chennai was derided for being an overgrown village, an underdeveloped aspirant to metropolitan status.




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 Adyar river, 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, telecom special economic zones (SEZs) and gated residential areas built on important drainage courses and catchments.




map-1.jpg

MRC Nagar in 2001(Google Maps)
map-2.jpg

MRC Nagar in 2015(Google Maps)
With every invitation to Make in Chennai, the city is unmaking itself and eroding its resilience to perfectly normal monsoon weather events. The infrastructure of big commerce has replaced the infrastructure to withstand natural shocks.




The 2015 disaster was not just avoidable; it was a direct consequence of decisions pushed for by vested interests and conceded by town planners, bureaucrats and politicians in the face of wiser counsel.




The case of the Pallikaranai marshlands, which drains water from a 250 square kilometre catchment, is telling. Not long ago, it was a 50 sq km water sprawl in the southern suburbs of Chennai. Now, it is 4.3 sq km—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 (NIOT). Ironically, NIOT is an accredited consultant to prepare environmental impact assessments on various subjects, including on the implications of constructing on waterbodies.




Other portions of this wetland have been sacrificed to accommodate the IT corridor. But water offers no exemption to the elite industry. Unmindful of the lofty intellectuals at work in the glass and steel buildings of the software parks, rainwater goes by habit to occupy its old haunts, bringing the back-office work of American banks to a grinding halt.




The vast network of waterbodies that characterised Chennai can only be seen on revenue maps now. Of the 16 tanks belonging to the Vyasarpadi chain downstream of Retteri, none remains, according to professor M. Karmegam of Anna University.




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.




Capacity reduction
Before political rivalry between the two Dravidian parties brought it to a midway halt, an ill-advised Elevated Express freight corridor from Chennai harbour to Maduravoyal had already reclaimed a substantial portion of the Cooum’s southern bank drastically reducing the flood-carrying capacity of the river.




Remarkably, all these causes were listed out by the government’s own officials at a seminar on waterways organised by the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority in 2010. But there seems to be many a slip between enlightened understanding and enlightened action.




The Second Masterplan prepared by the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority glibly authorises built-up spaces with no regard to hydrology. In the Ennore region, the authority has reclassified waterbodies, intertidal zones and mangrove swamps as “Special and Hazardous Industries” and handed it over to the Kamarajar Port Ltd.




In Ponneri, a town in a rural part of Chennai Metropolitan Area, developers are executing Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority-approved plans with no regard to drainage. Last month, Ponneri received 370 mm of rain. While it suffered from flooding, damage to property and life was not high. Ponneri is slotted to be developed as a smart city.



But will our dumb engineers be able to build a smart city?




This post first appeared on Scroll.in.
 
You see the Indian members desperate to mask this flood by posting plenty of thread about Chennai people helping one another in the flood while refuse to face the problem of poor urban planning that causes such serious flood.

I can bet those airliner get flooded in the Chennai international airport which have their jet needed million dollars of repair will curse and swear at Indians. It was a joked to see flood at an international airport. A total humiliation for Indians. Modi even talks about investing in India with Made in India his slogan. Who want to open a factory and get your whole production schedule ruin by flood?
 
You see the Indian members desperate to mask this flood by posting plenty of thread about Chennai people helping one another in the flood

Wow,is posting pics of the rescue operation in Chennai is 'masking'.Typical brain dead troll.

I can bet those airliner get flooded in the Chennai international airport which have their jet needed million dollars of repair will curse and swear at Indians. It was a joked to see flood there. A total humiliation for Indians.

Your very own shanghai airport

640_fef2c98f3c7aa436a6ebb659430f43dc.gif
 
Tamil Nadu is also trying to destroy Sri Lanka's fishing resources after they did the same to their own. Nothing but a bunch of thieves who "live for the day" and worship film stars.
 
Wow,is posting pics of the rescue operation in Chennai is 'masking'.Typical brain dead troll.

Do you want to deny this flood is unavoidable?
Airport_Flooded_EPS.jpg


chennai-airport-tarmac-flooded_650x400_71449030052.jpg


Getting your cities flooded is bad enough but getting your international airport flooded like poo pond is a total disaster for more or less tells you what kind of state India is.

Wow,is posting pics of the rescue operation in Chennai is 'masking'.Typical brain dead troll.



Your very own shanghai airport

640_fef2c98f3c7aa436a6ebb659430f43dc.gif
Are you sure that is a flood. May I know how long ago this? It looks fake.
 
Do you want to deny this flood is unavoidable?
View attachment 276873

View attachment 276874

Getting your cities flooded is bad enough but getting your international airport flooded like poo pond is a total disaster for more or less tells you what kind of state India is.


Are you sure that is a flood. May I know how long ago this? It looks fake.


Tamil Nadu is a particularly backward state in India.
 
Getting your cities flooded is bad enough but getting your international airport flooded like poo pond is a total disaster for more or less tells you what kind of state India is.

This was avoidable,wasn't it ?

China's new £700 million airport terminal is leaking - Telegraph

Torrential rain ahead of Typhoon Swan floods Shanghai airport[1]- Chinadaily.com.cn

Are you sure that is a flood. May I know how long ago this? It looks fake.

lol,google it
 
Chennai floods are not a natural disaster—they’ve been created by greedy town planners and dumb engineers - Quartz

Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa’s response to the floods in Tamil Nadu is frightening.




A report in NDTV quotes her as saying, “Losses are unavoidable when there’s very heavy rain. Swift rescue and relief alone are indicators of a good government.” These words are intended to normalise a human-made disaster, and gloss over the pathology of urban development under successive administrations.




It is quite usual for politicians and civic officials to blame so-called unprecedented rains for the civic and humanitarian crisis each monsoon brings, and decouple development from disaster. But unprecedented rains occur quite regularly in Chennai. As a city on the high-energy coast facing the Bay of Bengal, Chennai is no stranger to heavy rains and cyclonic storms. Chennai has experienced particularly heavy rains roughly once every 10 years—1969, 1976, 1985, 1996, 1998, 2005, 2015.




In fact, in 1976, Adyar river overflowed its banks and invaded first-floor houses. But those were the days when Chennai was derided for being an overgrown village, an underdeveloped aspirant to metropolitan status.




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 Adyar river, 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, telecom special economic zones (SEZs) and gated residential areas built on important drainage courses and catchments.




map-1.jpg

MRC Nagar in 2001(Google Maps)
map-2.jpg

MRC Nagar in 2015(Google Maps)
With every invitation to Make in Chennai, the city is unmaking itself and eroding its resilience to perfectly normal monsoon weather events. The infrastructure of big commerce has replaced the infrastructure to withstand natural shocks.




The 2015 disaster was not just avoidable; it was a direct consequence of decisions pushed for by vested interests and conceded by town planners, bureaucrats and politicians in the face of wiser counsel.




The case of the Pallikaranai marshlands, which drains water from a 250 square kilometre catchment, is telling. Not long ago, it was a 50 sq km water sprawl in the southern suburbs of Chennai. Now, it is 4.3 sq km—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 (NIOT). Ironically, NIOT is an accredited consultant to prepare environmental impact assessments on various subjects, including on the implications of constructing on waterbodies.




Other portions of this wetland have been sacrificed to accommodate the IT corridor. But water offers no exemption to the elite industry. Unmindful of the lofty intellectuals at work in the glass and steel buildings of the software parks, rainwater goes by habit to occupy its old haunts, bringing the back-office work of American banks to a grinding halt.




The vast network of waterbodies that characterised Chennai can only be seen on revenue maps now. Of the 16 tanks belonging to the Vyasarpadi chain downstream of Retteri, none remains, according to professor M. Karmegam of Anna University.




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.




Capacity reduction
Before political rivalry between the two Dravidian parties brought it to a midway halt, an ill-advised Elevated Express freight corridor from Chennai harbour to Maduravoyal had already reclaimed a substantial portion of the Cooum’s southern bank drastically reducing the flood-carrying capacity of the river.




Remarkably, all these causes were listed out by the government’s own officials at a seminar on waterways organised by the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority in 2010. But there seems to be many a slip between enlightened understanding and enlightened action.




The Second Masterplan prepared by the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority glibly authorises built-up spaces with no regard to hydrology. In the Ennore region, the authority has reclassified waterbodies, intertidal zones and mangrove swamps as “Special and Hazardous Industries” and handed it over to the Kamarajar Port Ltd.




In Ponneri, a town in a rural part of Chennai Metropolitan Area, developers are executing Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority-approved plans with no regard to drainage. Last month, Ponneri received 370 mm of rain. While it suffered from flooding, damage to property and life was not high. Ponneri is slotted to be developed as a smart city.



But will our dumb engineers be able to build a smart city?




This post first appeared on Scroll.in.
Are you mad or trying to become a mad...this disaster will happen anywhere...did you dont understand it??? your country whatever you represent is that in Heaven??? no disaster there??? kid think twice before bark

Chennai floods are not a natural disaster—they’ve been created by greedy town planners and dumb engineers - Quartz

Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa’s response to the floods in Tamil Nadu is frightening.




A report in NDTV quotes her as saying, “Losses are unavoidable when there’s very heavy rain. Swift rescue and relief alone are indicators of a good government.” These words are intended to normalise a human-made disaster, and gloss over the pathology of urban development under successive administrations.




It is quite usual for politicians and civic officials to blame so-called unprecedented rains for the civic and humanitarian crisis each monsoon brings, and decouple development from disaster. But unprecedented rains occur quite regularly in Chennai. As a city on the high-energy coast facing the Bay of Bengal, Chennai is no stranger to heavy rains and cyclonic storms. Chennai has experienced particularly heavy rains roughly once every 10 years—1969, 1976, 1985, 1996, 1998, 2005, 2015.




In fact, in 1976, Adyar river overflowed its banks and invaded first-floor houses. But those were the days when Chennai was derided for being an overgrown village, an underdeveloped aspirant to metropolitan status.




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 Adyar river, 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, telecom special economic zones (SEZs) and gated residential areas built on important drainage courses and catchments.




map-1.jpg

MRC Nagar in 2001(Google Maps)
map-2.jpg

MRC Nagar in 2015(Google Maps)
With every invitation to Make in Chennai, the city is unmaking itself and eroding its resilience to perfectly normal monsoon weather events. The infrastructure of big commerce has replaced the infrastructure to withstand natural shocks.




The 2015 disaster was not just avoidable; it was a direct consequence of decisions pushed for by vested interests and conceded by town planners, bureaucrats and politicians in the face of wiser counsel.




The case of the Pallikaranai marshlands, which drains water from a 250 square kilometre catchment, is telling. Not long ago, it was a 50 sq km water sprawl in the southern suburbs of Chennai. Now, it is 4.3 sq km—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 (NIOT). Ironically, NIOT is an accredited consultant to prepare environmental impact assessments on various subjects, including on the implications of constructing on waterbodies.




Other portions of this wetland have been sacrificed to accommodate the IT corridor. But water offers no exemption to the elite industry. Unmindful of the lofty intellectuals at work in the glass and steel buildings of the software parks, rainwater goes by habit to occupy its old haunts, bringing the back-office work of American banks to a grinding halt.




The vast network of waterbodies that characterised Chennai can only be seen on revenue maps now. Of the 16 tanks belonging to the Vyasarpadi chain downstream of Retteri, none remains, according to professor M. Karmegam of Anna University.




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.




Capacity reduction
Before political rivalry between the two Dravidian parties brought it to a midway halt, an ill-advised Elevated Express freight corridor from Chennai harbour to Maduravoyal had already reclaimed a substantial portion of the Cooum’s southern bank drastically reducing the flood-carrying capacity of the river.




Remarkably, all these causes were listed out by the government’s own officials at a seminar on waterways organised by the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority in 2010. But there seems to be many a slip between enlightened understanding and enlightened action.




The Second Masterplan prepared by the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority glibly authorises built-up spaces with no regard to hydrology. In the Ennore region, the authority has reclassified waterbodies, intertidal zones and mangrove swamps as “Special and Hazardous Industries” and handed it over to the Kamarajar Port Ltd.




In Ponneri, a town in a rural part of Chennai Metropolitan Area, developers are executing Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority-approved plans with no regard to drainage. Last month, Ponneri received 370 mm of rain. While it suffered from flooding, damage to property and life was not high. Ponneri is slotted to be developed as a smart city.



But will our dumb engineers be able to build a smart city?




This post first appeared on Scroll.in.

its wrose then disaster
 
You see the Indian members desperate to mask this flood by posting plenty of thread about Chennai people helping one another in the flood while refuse to face the problem of poor urban planning that causes such serious flood.

Ha ha .... pathetic Chinaman talks about flooding in India when all he has to do is look at his own country where half the population of China lives in a flood prone low lying delta region....:rofl:...

That photo is at August and not now. Its a massive disaster by Goni. While your Chennai currently is not even affected by Typhoon and flooded like a swimming pool. :lol:

Heaviest rainfall in Chennai over 200 years
 
Are you mad or trying to become a mad...this disaster will happen anywhere...did you dont understand it??? your country whatever you represent is that in Heaven??? no disaster there??? kid think twice before bark



its wrose then disaster

Its a good sight that Chinese are rich that everybody could afford a car and cause a jam.

In India, Jam are not caused by car but by cows and trickshaw jamming the road. :enjoy:
 
Ha ha .... pathetic Chinaman talks about flooding in India when all he has to do is look at his own country where half the population of China lives in a flood prone low lying delta region....:rofl:...



Heaviest rainfall in 200 years

There are dams and well to reduce the effect. So Sorry in India, there is not such infrastructure. Most flood will reach your head or neck level. :enjoy:
 
Back
Top Bottom