Avenue trees to be pruned after KK Nagar tragedy

CHENNAI: After a tragic incident of a tree falling on a moving car claimed life of a women in KK Nagar, the Greater Chennai Corporation has decided to intensify pruning of overgrown avenue tree branches across the city.

A senior Chennai Corporation official said that such incidents will be prevented if branches are removed. "Though it is not a scientific method, we will try this to see whether it works or not. We will leave only trunk and a few small branches. This reduce the overall weight of the trees," he added.

When asked about the incident, the official explained that avenue trees are a huge challenge while constructing the storm water drains as the civic body could not cut down the trees.

"The only other way to continue the work is to bypass the tree by going curve around the tree. While doing this, we need to still cut down the roots and this will elicit opposition from the residents and tree would become weak," the official explained.

Meanwhile, the civic body has decided to conduct a probe to ascertain the reason for the tree fallen incident in KK Nagar as the tree was located close to an under construction storm water drain.