About 120 cm of rainfall came crashing down on Chennai in November, which is a record, but not unprecedented. Weather data shows that the city receives very heavy rainfall once in every ten years. This means the corporation that manages the city and the government should have been prepared for it. But they were not. Drains were clogged, housing colonies were inundated, roads caved in and water logging was the order of the day. About 188 persons lost their lives and political parties pointed fingers at each other.
The truth is, the city has been badly managed. Building norms have been flouted and no care was taken to ensure that storm water drains were constructed in the right places. Rain water doesn't just flow into the sea. It has to be channelised and it took a bout of heavy rainfall to expose the inefficiency and lack of planning. Chennai is an example for any city that chooses to get rid of its green cover and water bodies which act as sinks. Chennai had 150 water bodies, now it has just 27. The bigger question is, will things change once the deluge stops? One hopes they do. Chennai needs to take stock of how the system broke down and rebuild it from scratch if necessary.
