Team TOIThe city's
green cover
seems to have borne the brunt of the cyclone on Monday as high-velocity winds brought down a large number of trees.
Greater Chennai
Corporation estimated the number of fallen trees at 2,810, of which more than 649 were cleared till Monday night. As many as 30 trees on the premises of the Madras high court got uprooted.
Several educational campuses in the city like IIT-Madras and Anna University that had a large forest cover also lost a considerable number of trees. Anna University officials said less than 10% of the 1,000 trees on its campus were impacted in the storm.
IIT Madras officials said trees had fallen on major roads on the campus, blocking th e movement of vehicles. “A number of big trees have fallen, at least three on one road alone. However, we are yet to do a complete assessment as there were power cuts on the campus and we will be able to gauge the damage only on Tuesday ,“ said Prof David Koilpillai, dean, planning, IIT-M.
Meanwhile, Madras University registrar David Jawahar said that about 40% of the total area on the Guindy campus had green cover.“The tree cover on the main campus (Marina) is about 15% to 20% and at least 7 trees have fallen on the campus on Monday . We will carry out a detailed assessment on Tuesday on both campuses and are planning to plant saplings accordingly,“ he said. With Chennai's tree cover at just over 2% -nine square kilometres in all the city falls behind the required margin. Greater Chennai Corporation estimates tree cover in the city at a little over 3 lakh. As per the national forest policy, the corporation, which has expanded to over 426 sq km, has to ideally have a 33% tree cover.
Shobha Menon, founder and managing trustee of NGO Nizhal, says what is missing is pro-active tree health care management.“It is only when a disaster like this happens people talk about it. Why is nothing being done for the long term? People at the administration level must realise that we need to take care of trees as they grow. What kind of trees are we planting? Are we taking care of maturing trees? Are we checking on whether trees are infected with disease, whether they need pruning? There is a failure to understand trees across sections of the society,“ she said.
While tree fall is unavoidable when certain natural forces are at play , Menon points out that pro-active care can at least help reduce the number of trees falling. “When the tree branches are weak, are we doing something before it falls? What are we doing to prevent further tree fall. There is no continuous health care management,“ she added.