Chennai Floods 2023 | Cyclone Michaung's Wrath In Chennai | Chennai Rain News | N18V | News18
Life in Chennai is mostly peaceful until it's monsoon season. Cyclone Michaung is proof of the extent of damage the city faces during the rainy season. Although Cyclone Michaung made landfall on the coast of Andhra, Chennai was battered mercilessly. Continuous rainfall for two days caused severe flooding, power outages and brought Chennai to a standstill. Chennai is not new to cyclones, typhoons, or storms, the city has borne the brunt of all these natural disasters. Then why does Chennai drown every year? What is the reason behind the flooding?
Chennai has fallen prey to severe flooding in the past but in recent years there is a consistent pattern that has emerged. Every year the coastal city faces unprecedented flooding and it is not attributed to passing cyclones or storms. There are mainly 5 factors that cause massive floods in Chennai city and they are Chennai’s locality, urbanization, encroachment, stormwater drains, and climate change.
Chennai has faced 7 catastrophic floods since 1943 but still struggles to cope. The floods in 2015 will go down in history, as Chennai never witnessed such a disastrous time. The 2015 floods was a result of the sudden discharge of water from the Chembarambakkam reservoir into the Adyar river at an alarming rate. The water was discharged at midnight without prior notice to the public. Houses were flooded, people were stranded, over 1.8 million were displace and 500 people lost their lives to the floods. The flood was more a result of reservoir mismanagement rather than natural climatic conditions.The 2015 floods was a wake-up call, highlighting everything that was wrong in Chennai and the city will always bear the scars of the disastrous flood. Unless Chennai maps lost lakes and rivers, builds better stormwater drains, avoids encroachment of wetlands, and preserves water bodies, the city will face the wrath of floods every year.
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