Tamil Nadu prepares for 'any eventuality'

Short of an eerie return to December 2004 repeat, entire coastal Tamil Nadu and some interior districts were on edge for nearly four hours on Wednesday afternoon in the wake of a Tsunami warning after a massive earthquake hit twice off the western coast of Northern Sumatra in Indonesia.

Thousands of people ran out of their homes, high-rise apartments and offices in panic in the State capital Chennai as the first ‘strong tremors’ were felt around 2.30 pm, eyewitnesses told Deccan Herald over telephone.

The quake-movements were felt in different parts along coastal Tamil Nadu, right through Cuddalore, Nagapattinam, up to Nagercoil in Kanniyakumari district deep South, besides in some interior districts like Ramanathapuram, Madurai, Karur, Pudukottai and Thanjavur.

As a high alert for a possible Tsunami-grade tidal wave hitting was sounded out for the entire coastal belt, including Pondicherry Union Territory, in no time the vast Marina beach in Chennai was cleared of all people. The beach road in Pondicherry, recently battered by a tropical cyclone, was also utterly deserted as this Deccan Herald Correspondent went around the area.

All the coastal villages in particular had been alerted and fishermen and others asked to move to safer places, a police official in Pondicherry said, adding, “we were told to keep a watch for a tsunami attack between 4 and 5 pm.” Similarly, coastal district authorites were on an anxious wait withy teams of Revenue, Police and Fire Services and Rescue personnel.

Authorities wished to take no chances in coastal Kancheepuram and Tirunelveli districts, particularly in the latter where only recently a prolonged agitation against the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project had caused much concern among the local people and  fisherfolk. Soon after the Tsunami warning was sounded, ferry services between the mainland in Kanniyakumari and the Vivekananda Rock there were stopped.

“We were caught off guard as chairs, tables, cot and everything rattled in our house and we came rushing down to the streets,” said Indira, a housewife in Adyar in South Chennai. “We could feel the ground shake beneath our feet for one to two minutes,” she said.

People in areas such as T Nagar and Mylapore were among those who reported the ground-shake almost instantly to relatives and friends in other parts of the State, fearing that cellphones could go down in the event of a major episode. A few more tremors were felt in parts of Chennai and other parts of Tamil Nadu around 4 pm, following a second quake near Indonesia.

However, except reports of some houses developing cracks, no major casualty was reported till this evening. While Government offices and schools quickly declared half-day holiday, the ‘sarkari’ staff in the 10-storeyed Secretariat Building got a scare, sources said.


Office goers from government departments and private firms, besides students and teachers rushed back to their homes, triggering major traffic jams in various points in Chennai metro.

Anxiety high

Though no tremors were felt in Pondicherry,  people's anxieties soared as only recently this part had been ravaged by the tropical 'Thane' cyclone. Police had blocked the entry points to the beach road, even as all the staff from the Secretariat scampered back home. Several Chennai-bound passengers at the bus station cancelled their trips as word got around that taking the East Coast Road was not advisable in the wake of a Tsunami warning.

Only after the Tsunami warning was scaled down around 6 pm and subsequently withdrawn, people heaved a huge sigh of relief, thanks to the Tsunami off Indonesia lacking depth.

Fully prepared

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalitha said that the entire state administration was geared up to meet any eventuality.

All field staff, including medical teams, were in a state of preparedness to meet any emergency, she said in a statement and urged people not to panic. After-shocks would be common in such circumstances but the State was ready with a contingency disaster response plan, she assured.

Officials at the Kudankulam nuclear plant sent out a first ‘safe’ message late this evening, saying there was no threat to the plant, even as they went into an emergency meeting to take stock of the situation.