Destructive human activity worsening Jaffna flooding
When the seasonal monsoons coupled with the cyclonic storm ‘Burevi’ blew across Northern and Eastern provinces last week, most parts in the Jaffna city area went under water within a couple of hours of heavy rainfall.
One of the city’s busiest streets, Stanley Road, was inundated as its drainage canals were partially or fully damaged by traders, or illegal new buildings.
It came to light later that a pond called “Pullukulam’, on the street, near a forgone theater complex ‘Windsor’ had also disappeared. Now, a shopping complex has been built on the pond into which the rainwater had flowed
Nearly 400 ponds and small tanks disappeared in the district over the decades due to urbanisation. In 1980, at least 1,326 ponds and small tanks had existed, whereas by 2020, only 926 remained.
The lack of drainage, irresponsible garbage dumping in public places and increasing urbanisation contributed to last week's flood havoc, disrupting the lives of 57,500 people from 17,200 families in Jaffna district alone. Two died.
The flood water flowed into the wards of Jaffna Teaching Hospital, in the heart of the city in the 13-acre area.
Jaffna Mayor Immanuel Arnold, refuted allegations that his office failed to take precautionary steps to prevent this disaster by ensuring a proper drainage system.
“Even by September, we had taken all the preventive steps to clean open drainage canals which were filled with plastic and garbage blocking water flow. There was a dedicated unit deployed around the clock during the cyclone period to monitor the water flow but since the sea level increased significantly, the flood water took hours to drain away,” Mr Arnold told the Sunday Times while pointing out that within hours, the region received over 264 millilitres of rainfall last week.
Currently his office is preparing a master drainage plan through a strategic cities development programme under the Ministry of Urban Development, Water Supply and Housing Facilities.
The developments proposed include restoring the drainage network within the JMC and other areas to prevent city flooding during monsoon rains.
Rathnakumar Nishanthan, deputy commissioner of the Department of Agrarian Development in Jaffna, stressed the department is focused on renovating small agrarian tanks. All the ponds and mini tanks within Jaffna Municipality area come under the purview of JMC.
His office had tracked some of the abandoned mini agrarian tanks and partially closed ponds within the district. With the 18 renovated mini tanks, documented with satellite coordinates, there are 1,060 agrarian tanks identified so far.
“To ensure the ponds and mini tanks are protected and renovated accordingly, we have begun the process of documenting all the identified mini tanks with its satellite coordinates along with Global Positioning System (GPS),” Mr Nishanthan said.
Annually, the Jaffna district records nearly 1,200mm of rain, but last week along with the cyclone, the district recorded the highest rainfall of 300mm within two days, according to T. Piratheepan, office in charge of the Department of Meteorology in Jaffna.
Temple Road, Nallur has become an area where demand for real estate is high, where one parappu (10 perches) costs Rs 6.5 million. When the cyclone hit most parts of the road and the houses were submerged.
N. Piratheeparajah, senior lecturer of the department of geography at University of Jaffna is concerned that high rainfall could become the norm, due to climate change.
Mr Piratheeparajah, who studies rainfall in the region, stressed that over the decades, the rain distribution pattern has changed significantly.
“Earlier, there were 72 rainy days where the region got significant rainfall but now it has been reduced to 58 days. This is a very alarming situation we are heading to.’’
He noted that urbanisation played a key role in destroying the natural drainage system as one time sand filled courtyards in houses are converted to concrete floors blocking the natural water flow during monsoons.
Boundary wall around homes also block the flow of flood waters, Mr Piratheeparajah said.
“The recent boom of urbanization along with elevation of railway tracks and paved roads in Jaffna disrupted the natural drainage system to a certain extent as the peninsula is a flat land. We have to ensure proper drainage in place to avoid future scenarios like this since this is most likely to be the pattern,” he warned.