WE SHOULD PLAN FOR ONE TSUNAMI EVERY 100 YEARS

Is Chennai rain-prepared? As another rainy season threatens to sink the city in untold miseries, TNIE invites prominent citizens to pen their experiences and suggestions that can help mitigate the impact

- RAJIV MENON

In 1802, Madras was the epicenter of a project that eventually led to the discovery that Mount Everest was the tallest peak in the world. The Great Trigonometrical Survey of India was started from the St Thomas Mount in the city.

Exactly 202 years later, it was another man-made engineering feat which ensured that large parts of Chennai were saved from the effects of the Boxing Day Tsunami. Hundreds died on Marina beach on that day, but it is said the energy of the giant waves dissipated by the Buckingham canal, that runs parallel to the Bay of Bengal coast, saved thousands living in the thickly populated areas just a few meters away.

The canal, which is about 800 km long from Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh to Chidambaram, and Kosasthalaiyar, Cooum and Adyar rivers that run through the city are a reminder on how Chennai is geographically endowed with waterbodies that have the capacity and capability to act as a natural protector against tsunamis, cyclones and carry excess flood water into the sea.