Tsunami casts doubts on Sethu

A Sri Lankan expert urges fresh look into the Sethusamudram canal project, writes PK Balachanddran.

The unexpected and vicious churning of the Indian Ocean on December 26, 2004, should make India and Sri Lanka jointly study its impact on the Palk Strait, where India proposes to dig a shipping canal, says Prof Willie Mendis, a Sri Lankan authority on ports and spatial planning.

"Post-tsunami, it will be appropriate to examine if the Sethusamudram Ship Canal Project can be proceeded with," Mendis told Hindustan Times.

A senior professor at the University of Moratuwa, he said that it was possible that the flow of ocean currents had changed in the Palk Strait as a result of the tsunami, because the immediate neighboured had gone into a convulsion.

The Palk Strait and the coastlines adjoining it were apparently unaffected, but areas not too far away, such as Nagapattinam in the north, on the Indian side, and Point Pedro in the east, on the Sri Lankan side, had been badly hit by the giant tsunami waves.

"The flow of ocean currents flowing through the Palk Strait now, has to be studied before India proceeds with the canal project," Mendis said.

According to him, so far, no study has been made on the volume of water flowing through the Palk Strait.

The impact of the tsunami on the bed of the Palk Strait should also be looked into, he urged.

It will be worthwhile to look into its impact on the shoals (hardened sand mounds), which forms the "Adam's Bridge" across the strait.

"The shoals could have shifted," he feared.

Scientists should also do a computer simulation of the impact of the tsunami on the canal, assuming that it was already there, Mendis suggested. Any man-made intervention in the shallow and narrow Palk Strait, like the digging of a canal, would lead to an increase in the volume of water flowing, and to changes in current patterns, he said.