Kalpakkam

Kalpakkam is a small town in Tamil Nadu, India, situated on the Coromandel Coast 70 kilometres south of Chennai. A conglomerate of two villages (Puduppattinam and Sadurangappatinam) and a DAE township, it is about 55km from Thiruvanmiyur and 85km from Pondicherry.Kalpakkam is mostly famous for its nuclear plants and affiliated research installations. These include the Madras Atomic Power Station (MAPS), one of India's nuclear power plants, and the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR), an affiliate of the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE).Due to increasing congestion in Kalpakkam arising from the need to accommodate more employees, a new township of Anupuram/Amaipakkam, from Kalpakkam, was inaugurated in 1998.The tsunami caused by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake generated widespread damage and resulted in 200 deaths in and around Kalpakkam. There is a tsunami memorial having a white oval plaque engraved with the names of 39 people who lost their lives in the tsunami.