Flood preparedness: Chennai Airport installs water level recorder

The Chennai Airport has installed an automatic water level recorder to be alerted on increasing water levels in the Adyar river.The airports boundary lies on the banks of the Adyar river for a considerable stretch and often faces with the flood threat during heavy monsoons, an official release here said.Now, to continuously detect the water levels of Adyar river, automatic water level recorder is installed at the secondary runway bridge site.

The Chennai Airport has installed an automatic water level recorder to be alerted on increasing water levels in the Adyar river.

The airport's boundary lies on the banks of the Adyar river ''for a considerable stretch and often faces with the flood threat during heavy monsoons,'' an official release here said.

''Now, to continuously detect the water levels of Adyar river, automatic water level recorder is installed at the secondary runway bridge site. The system will record the variation in water levels of Adyar river at bridge location and the feed from the same is continuously monitored at a control station which is located in Terminal Building,'' it said.

When the river water level swells above the 9.5m MSL (mean sea level) mark, (Bridge soffit level-10.5m MSL),the system will sound alarm in Control station and push alert messages to the mobile numbers of 10 important Airports Authority of India officials in charge of operations, it said. ''Thus, by installing this facility, Chennai Airport will get alerts for protecting the vital infrastructure pertaining to airport operations prior to a flood...'' it said.

The airport suffered severe flooding and resultant operational issues in December 2015 following a deluge.