Velankanni is a Special Grade Panchayat Town in Nagapattinam region in the Indian territory of Tamil Nadu. It lies on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal, 350 km south of Chennai Madras and 12 km south of Nagapattinam. Once a port that exchanged with Rome and Greece, the modest business focus continuously lost its significance to the bigger city of Nagapattinam. The channel worked to connect this town with Vedaranyam still deceives the west.
The Vellayar, a minor part of the Cauvery River, runs south of the town and releases into the ocean. The town was among the most exceedingly awful hit by the torrent caused by the 2004 Indian Ocean seismic tremor. The town is home to a standout amongst the most visited Roman Catholic Latin Rite hallowed places called the Basilica of Our Lady of Good Health. Velankanni has one of the nation's greatest Catholic journey focuses, the Basilica of Our Lady of Good Health.
Given to Our Lady of Good Health, it is prevalently known as the "Lourdes of the East". Its starting points can be followed back to the sixteenth century. The congregation's establishing is credited to three supernatural occurrences: the ghost of Mary and Jesus to a sleeping shepherd kid, the relieving of a weak buttermilk seller, and the survival of Portuguese mariners ambushed by a brutal ocean storm. It is worked in the Gothic style, was adjusted by Portuguese and afterward additionally extended later on because of the deluge of pioneers.