Environment
Cyclones, Tsunami
and the Sethusamudram project
Union shipping and surface transport minister T R Baalu, touring the
tsunami affected Tuticorin and Nagercoil coast of Tamil Nadu in the
first week of January, told media persons the Sethusamudram ship canal
project will save the coast from tsunamis.
The foundation stone for this project, which envisages digging a 44.9
nautical-mile channel through the Rameswaram island, linking the Palk
Strait with the heritage bio- reserve, the Gulf of Mannar at a present
cost of Rs.20 billion, is to be laid soon.
The channel is expected to save 402 nautical miles of journey between
India’s west and east coasts.
The minister told the media that tsunamis will not effect the
Sethusamudram canal building.
“There will be no let up in implementation of the Sethusamudram
project”, Baalu said after inspecting the Tuticorin and Colachel ports
and the Rameswaram and Kanyakumari coastline last Sunday.
He said, as part of the project, a sea wall, 3 to 4 ft high will be
built along the Tuticorin coast to protect the area here.
After six tsunamis hit India’s east coast on Dec 26 morning,
environmentalist are, however, objecting to having such a project in
this area, saying it will put more human lives and infrastructure in
danger.
The India Meteorological Department has assigned the Palk Bay area as a
“high risk area” for volcanic and cyclonic activity.
Dutch shipping records of as old as 1627 tell of “great storms
that lashed the Coromandel coast, wrecking 200 vessels from Sao Tome
(modern-day Chennai)” .
Member of the forum Doctors for Safe Environment, R Ramesh, says the
Gulf of Mannar is an area where volcanic activities are very possible.
He cites studies by the international Indian Ocean Expedition of 1975
and a study by an underwater geologist G R K Murthy in 1994, to point
out that these reports say, “magnetic and gravity data from the GoM
floor” shows “a channel like feature about 12 to 20 km width in a broad
trough on the ocean floor in this area, which is likely to be a result
of shallow earthquake of less than 7 magnitude”.
The studies also report volcanic vents at 5 to 11 km depths, which show
“presence of major tectonic structural features in the GoM floor”.
Sunday’s tsunamis that hit several Asian countries, was caused, experts
say due to movement of the Indian sub-continental tectonic plate under
the Burma plate.
Since Dec 26, as many as 100 aftershocks have hit the Andaman and
Nicober group of islands, off this coast.
“To locate a shipping canal in an area which shows tectonic activity is
not quite scientific”, Ramesh says.
The Palk Bay area is also one of the five major sediment sinks of India,
the pit that holds drainings from major rives in the peninsula.
The IMD’s own records from 1891 to 2001 say out of the 452 storms that
hit India, 256 hit the east coast.
South of 10 degree N, that is, the Nagapattinam coastline is “highly
vulnerable”, most experts say.
In 1964, a storm in December washed away the Pamban bridge and a train
full of people, mostly holiday makers.
In Nov 1966, a tidal bore battered Madras Port, which was again battered
by Sunday’s tsunami.
In Dec 1973, five meter high tidal waves hit Palk Bay, through which the
Sethu canal will be dredged.
In 1977, Nagapattinam was hit by a cyclone. In 1978, Palk Bay was lashed
by 120km speed winds.
In Nov 1992, Tuticorin harbour was battered by high winds and waves.
In 1993, as many as 111 people were killed on the Karaikal-Pondicherry
coastline.
In I994, again 304 people died and 100,000 huts were washed away when
high winds and rough seas hit Chennai city.
The Dec 26 tsunami has taken many more lives, the toll stands over
14,000.
“It is obvious, all these years of disasters has not made any government
take notice and look at what kind of development is required”, Ramesh
says.
“ Even if a fraction of the money going into the Sethu project had been
used to set up calamity warning centers along the east coast, thousands
of lives could have been saved today “, he adds.
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