Why does Chennai get flooded after heavy rains||#Chennai

Why does Chennai get flooded after heavy rains||#Chennai https://youtu.be/PwBo3x2Td5o

#Chennai #chennaiweather #chennaifloods #chennairain #chennairains2021

The first reason for flooding in chennai is the heavy rains itself.The background you currently see is the world famous Marina beach. We received 70% more rains in November itself, when compared with previous years. Definitely too much for Chennai. Assuming it rains 100 mm for November, Chennai got 170 mm. This is not the actual figure, but an estimation of the rain that fell on chennai. The next reason is the terrain. Chennai's terrain is flat. It is not undulating like Bombay. In the case of Bombay, even after heavy rains, the roads get flooded but still gets drained quickly. They also have the advantage of low tide and high tide. During low tide, the sea water recedes, facilitating travel of water from land to sea. During high tide, the Sea water advances filling up the vacant land. The prospect of Rain water drainage is good. The next reason for water logging is that lot of encroachments on lakes have been regularly happening for the last few years. A simple example was the dumping of sand in Velacheri lake where anti social elements were filling up sand when the model code of conduct for elections was in force, with a plan to encroach upon land. All these lakes were built during the time of the kings as Chennai is in the rain shadow region of the western ghats. Our ancestors knew that rains are few and far between for the Chennai region. Sometimes the Monsoon entirely fails. It is to store the rain water, the lakes were constructed. However, with shortsightedness, we have allowed the filling up of the lakes as they were no longer used for irrigation. Whether used for irrigation or not, these lakes were serving a purpose of storing rain water which was not realized by governments. If you take Chinmaya Nagar/Elango Nagar area in Virugambakkam, water always stagnates when there are heavy rains. The reason is once upon a time, Virugambakkam lake existed there. It was filled up and converted to housing plots. However, nature knows it only as a lake. I'm showing the construction methods followed here in America. This is a new community being buiult. You can see a small pond next to the housing community. This is actually a watershed. When it rains heavily, the water would move to the watershed which in turn would flow into a nearby creek. That way, excess water gets drained quicly. If at all we get floods, iamgine the amount of rains we get. The next reason is the rivers that flow through the chennai. We have Couum flowing in the north and Adayar in the south. Couum river was unpolluted until early 1960's Kamalahaasan himself once mentioned that if you dip your hand into the river and take it out, it would only smell of fish. During subsequent years, settlements came on it's banks and started polluting the river. Now if you dip your hand, you will get all sorts of diseases. Both the rivers form Estuaries. In the case of an Estuary, sea water would enter land. That was seen even during the Tsunami. Due to it being an Estuary, water doesn't flow out easily into the sea. There is sand generation in Couum causing water stagnation. This is one of the reason for Rain water stagnation. The last but not the least reason is we, the people. Unless we realize that this is our city and we need to keep it clean, the same story is going to continue next year also! In fact, this time the Corporation authorities have removed 1000 tonnes of waste from water bodies. These were choking them, preventing free flow of water. You can see people being evacuated by boats from their homes. The Chief Minister's constituency itself got flooded and Annamalai IPS himself showed it's state by travelling in a boat. As global warming increases, we are going to see these unseasonal rains. We have to reduce the Carbon footprint, travelling more by foot. Although we cant prevent rains if they occur, we can definitely mitigate disasters.