Rain Lashes Tamil Nadu, Normal Life Thrown Out of Gear

Chennai: Intermittent, widespread rains lashed Chennai and other parts of Tamil Nadu on Tuesday, bringing residential neighbourhoods and roads under knee-deep water and leading to traffic congestion besides affecting public transport services.

While bus services were affected in several areas, the Southern Railway announced cancellation of four express trains including the Chennai Central-Mysuru Kaveri Express due to waterlogging.

A number of trains were diverted, some were stopped ahead of Chennai Central railway station. The origin station was shifted to suburban Avadi for a few trains. Several domestic flights were cancelled as sufficient number of passengers did not turn up to avail services.

The India Meteorological Department has forecast more rains for the next two days in the state and said that the well marked low pressure area has intensified into a depression on Tuesday evening and it is expected to cross coast near Chennai on October 17 morning. Earlier in the day, the low pressure area turned into a well marked low pressure area. A bulletin said that on October 16, "heavy to very heavy rain with extremely heavy rain at one or two places is likely to occur over Tiruvallur, Kancheepuram, Chengalpattu and Chennai districts." In the wake of the forecast, the government declared October 16 a holiday for schools, colleges and government offices, barring essential services, covering districts including Chennai, Tiruvallur, Kancheepuram and Chengelpet.

The government said that disaster response force teams of the state and centre are on standby in 26 locations in Chennai and districts nearby. Also, 219 boats are ready for use for rain related tasks in Chennai and other parts of the state. In Chennai, Tiruvallur, Chengelpet and Kancheepuram districts 931 relief centres are ready and top IAS officials are monitoring the situation. While work is on to clear waterlogging in over 300 places in the city, no untoward rain-related incident has been reported so far, barring a wall collapse incident and injuries to a person.

Chief Minister M K Stalin, alongwith state ministers, inspected work to drain rain water in flood prone localities and took civic workers to a tea shop and bought them tea and biscuits and also had tea with them. Stalin hailed the services of sanitary/civic workers and officials notwithstanding heavy rains and said he will stand shoulder to shoulder with the frontline workers.

The CM also visited the state emergency control centre here.

Deputy Chief Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin inspected several localities, including the Narayanapuram lake near Velachery and authorities said the surplus rain from the lake water drains into channels due to advance desilting work. He inspected the integrated command and control centre of Chennai Corporation, functioning from its headquarters, the Ripon Building, here to review ongoing work to tackle the situation arising out of the rains.

Tamil Nadu DGP Shankar Jiwal visited the State Police Flood Control Room at the operations headquarters here and interacted with the 6 teams of State Disaster Response Force and reviewed disaster related equipment.

As rains and thunderstorms continued, there was a dip in the number of road users in the city and suburbs. Local train operations, including Metro Rail, by and large, remained unaffected till evening. Some people, who own cars in flood-prone Ram Nagar in Madipakkam parked their vehicles in nearby Velachery bridge, a key part of busy south Chennai, and some, reportedly, moved away from their homes to hotels.

Civic authorities said trees that fell were removed then and there and water logging is being cleared by pumping out water into stormwater drains. Heavy-duty motors mounted on tractors have been deployed to clear waterlogging. Boats have also been stationed in vulnerable areas. Greater Chennai Corporation announced a helpline number 1913. A holiday had been declared for schools and colleges on October 15 and the government requested people to check the TN Alert App for weather updates. Since Monday night, Chennai and its suburbs have been experiencing intermittent rains.

Meanwhile, the Regional Meteorological Centre (RMC) said that under the influence of the weather system widespread rainfall was recorded in Tamil Nadu during the past 24 hours.

Furthermore, the RMC said isolated heavy to very heavy rain is likely in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry & Karaikal during the next three days with extremely heavy rain at one or two places during the next two days (October 16 and 17). Squally weather with 40 to 50 kmph wind speed, gusting to 60 kmph, is likely in north coastal Tamil Nadu on October 16 and fishermen have been advised against venturing into sea.

Also, the RMC said Southwest monsoon has withdrawn and Northeast monsoon rainfall activity has commenced in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and coastal Andhra Pradesh. According to the RMC bulletin, Kudumiyanmalai in Pudukottai district received 13 cm rainfall. Gummidipoondi in Tiruvallur district and Ennore in Chennai received 10 cm rainfall each. A vast majority of areas of the state have been covered by monsoon rains, which ranged between 1 cm to 9 cm. The rainfall data is for the 24-hour period commencing from 08.30 am on October 14 and ending on 8.30 AM the following day.