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, Southern Railway announced cancellation of four express trains including the Chennai Central-Mysuru Kaveri Express due to waterlogging. 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.
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.”
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.
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. For the coastal districts of Chennai, Tiruvallur, Kancheepuram and Chengelpet, the state government declared October 16 a holiday for schools, colleges and government offices, barring essential services, in view of forecast of heavy rainfall.
