From the islands

Chennai floods and the Tsunami before that remind us that in our pursuit of progress, we must not overlook the enduring lessons preserved by those who have harmonised with nature for millennia

Snakes slithered into homes and a crocodile was spotted on a flooded street. The city was submerged, again. Lives were lost and displaced, again. Questions on urban planning were raised, again.

Between the December deluge of 2015 and Cyclone Michaung of December 2023, Chennai, it appeared, hadn’t moved an inch in preparedness. If there were lessons from the past, those had been forgotten, again.

Let’s turn the clock back to another December day when another calamity, a far worse one, had come riding on the waves: The tsunami of 2004. Triggered by a massive undersea earthquake, which the scientists named the Sumatra–Andaman