Considered
a safe haven for thousands of students from across the country, Chennai
became a 'no-safe zone'. With no electricity and phone network because
of the incessant rain and flood, they could not establish any contact
with their worried family members and friends. Living in a state of
uncertainty, these students waited for the rain to stop, floodwaters to
recede, power to be restored and phones to crank back to life to let
them know they were safe.
Sayantani Chatterjee, a BBA student
of IIKM Business BBA student of IIKM Business School and who lives in a
hostel in Choolaimedu, narrates her ordeal: "Our hostel could not even
provide us food. Soon we ran out of running water, so we kept the
buckets outside to store rainwater. We even fashioned candles out of
ghee and used cotton as wick."
Sanyantani says she was scared but from her hostel window, she also saw how people, whose homes were inundated, had to struggle looking for a safe and dry place."We had sleepless nights because of the mosquitoes, but we also kept ourselves bu sy by playing ludo, singing and chatting."
In the floods, all of T Nagar was under a thick sheet of water and there is hardly any commercial building whose basement was not submerged.
"After taking permission to construct a basement car parking space, a vast majority of buildings converted their basements into offices, showrooms to accommodate electrical rooms, power back-up facility," said Praveen Kumar, a consultant. To protect them from demolition, the state government introduced a regularisation scheme in 1999 when DMK was in power. The violators thus got an option to pay a hefty penalty and get the violation condoned. Since then, the DMK and AIADMK govern ments introduced three more regularisation schemes, all of which (except the one in 1999 were struck down by the HC.
She and her sister are leaving Chennai and going home to Kolkata. "Our parents want to see us, make sure we are fine. We will return," she says.
For Sophia, who lives in a hostel in Vela chery , one of the worst-affected areas, could breathe a sigh of re lief only after her friends came to rescue her. The MSc Zoology student of Guru Nanak College and a native of Manipur, says, "Every time it rained, I would get depressed. But above all I was worried about my parents because I could not contact them." Sophia, who encountered snakes while wading through waist-deep water, never thought that the situation would get so bad. "I come from a state where floods happen almost every year, but the experi ence was scary ," she says.
Vinu Vincilas, a journalism student of SRM University , is one of the many who went `missing' during the melee. Vinu, who could not get in touch with his par ents or his friends, is finally traced and is now safe in Kerala.
CHENNAI: Some may blame it on the freak weather and climate change, but much of the destruction caused by the Chennai floods was due to human error, building rule violations being the foremost.
Chennai's commercial hub T Nagar is a telling example of owners throwing building norms to the wind. As per an estimate of the Madras high court appointed monitoring committee, on Ranganathan Street and a portion of North Usman Road alone, there are 65 commercial multi-storeyed buildings that have violated norms relating to floor space index (FSI is the ratio of land area to built-up area), set back, height of building, road width, fire safety and parking lot.
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Sanyantani says she was scared but from her hostel window, she also saw how people, whose homes were inundated, had to struggle looking for a safe and dry place."We had sleepless nights because of the mosquitoes, but we also kept ourselves bu sy by playing ludo, singing and chatting."
In the floods, all of T Nagar was under a thick sheet of water and there is hardly any commercial building whose basement was not submerged.
"After taking permission to construct a basement car parking space, a vast majority of buildings converted their basements into offices, showrooms to accommodate electrical rooms, power back-up facility," said Praveen Kumar, a consultant. To protect them from demolition, the state government introduced a regularisation scheme in 1999 when DMK was in power. The violators thus got an option to pay a hefty penalty and get the violation condoned. Since then, the DMK and AIADMK govern ments introduced three more regularisation schemes, all of which (except the one in 1999 were struck down by the HC.
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She and her sister are leaving Chennai and going home to Kolkata. "Our parents want to see us, make sure we are fine. We will return," she says.
For Sophia, who lives in a hostel in Vela chery , one of the worst-affected areas, could breathe a sigh of re lief only after her friends came to rescue her. The MSc Zoology student of Guru Nanak College and a native of Manipur, says, "Every time it rained, I would get depressed. But above all I was worried about my parents because I could not contact them." Sophia, who encountered snakes while wading through waist-deep water, never thought that the situation would get so bad. "I come from a state where floods happen almost every year, but the experi ence was scary ," she says.
Vinu Vincilas, a journalism student of SRM University , is one of the many who went `missing' during the melee. Vinu, who could not get in touch with his par ents or his friends, is finally traced and is now safe in Kerala.
CHENNAI: Some may blame it on the freak weather and climate change, but much of the destruction caused by the Chennai floods was due to human error, building rule violations being the foremost.
Chennai's commercial hub T Nagar is a telling example of owners throwing building norms to the wind. As per an estimate of the Madras high court appointed monitoring committee, on Ranganathan Street and a portion of North Usman Road alone, there are 65 commercial multi-storeyed buildings that have violated norms relating to floor space index (FSI is the ratio of land area to built-up area), set back, height of building, road width, fire safety and parking lot.
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