PHOTO: T. DURAIPANDI

GOING WITH THE FLOW: People wading to reach their workplace in the northern phase of Ambattur Industrial Estate, near Pattravakkam.

CHENNAI: Hundreds of residents near the Ambattur lake and Aarapathu lake in the city's western suburbs had a harrowing time on Tuesday with floodwaters entering their houses.

Water has been flowing into Thirumullaivoyal in Avadi and parts of Ambattur since Sunday night.

Water-logging

The Thiruvallur district authorities blame the water-logging on miscreants, allegedly those who had encroached upon the lakebed, demolishing a wall of sand bags erected to fortify a weak embankment of the Aarapathu lake, three days ago.

The district authorities, led by Collector Pankaj Kumar Bansal, visited the lake in the morning and began reconstructing the wall. The municipal corporations of Avadi and Ambattur faced a tough task with water from the 60-acre lake inundating Ganapathi Nagar and parts of Thirumullaivoyal.

Mr. Bansal said the Government machinery was on alert for the past two weeks. Thiruvallur district has a large number of water bodies. After the onset of the Northeast monsoon, the authorities had attended to more than 450 distress calls from those residing near water bodies.

The Collector said that though several water bodies had been filling up quickly, none of them were in danger of breaching. Just a few kilometres from Aarapathu Lake, residents near the Ambattur Lake also faced severe problems due to inundation.

The 626-acre lake's surplus conduit (kalangal) overflowed and flooded the residential colonies of Annai Sathiya Nagar, Periyar Nagar and Anna Nagar.

Poonamallee MLA S. Shanmugam said only one of the three surplus overflow conduits of Ambattur Lake was functional.

Encroachments

"The other conduits have been lost to encroachments. That is why water is not draining quickly."

Though the Ambattur lake falls under the Villivakkam constituency, some portions in the Poonamallee constituency have been affected.

The surplus conduits of the Maduravoyal-Alapakkam lake have been overflowing since Monday night, inundating western suburbs, including Valasaravakkam and Virugambakkam. The Virugambakkam canal is unable to handle the excess flow. As a result, stretches of the 100-feet ring road were flooded.

To drain the stagnant water in Valasaravakkam, Maduravoyal and the city's western suburbs, officials have been constructing new channels for water flow on Vanagaram Main Road.

"We hope to direct the water from Valasaravakkam through the Cooum River instead of Virugambakkam Canal, which is overflowing," Mr. Bansal said.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail