The Chennai floods will act as a greatest lesson for the government and municipal officials, town planners and engineers, who have all grossly failed at predicting and controlling the consequences of such a huge natural calamity which literally got the historic city, which is on the high-energy coast facing the Bay of Bengal, immerse in neck deep rain waters.
However, experts blame it on the dumb engineers and greedy town planners for pathetic state is affairs which are prevailing in Chennai for the last few weeks. In fact, Chennai is not new to excessive rainfall and waterlogging since the city has been witnessing alarmingly heavy rainfall every 10 years.
Just like it did now, the Adyar river overflowed dangerously in the 1976 floods and immersed all the first-floor houses in several parts of the city. The present situation only acts as a mirror to the callousness of the government and civic officials.
Even the political rivalry between the two major Dravidian parties in the state has resulted in the handicapping of city’s development and the blockage of infrastructure. The present disaster could have been avoided had it not been for the vested interests of politicians, bureaucrats and town planners, opine hydrology and town planning experts.