Heavy downpour brings Chennai to its knees, city braces for rainy week

Chennai: Non-stop rains for about 24 hours brought the Tamil Nadu capital to its knees on Tuesday with several low-lying areas of the city, especially in north Chennai, coming under water, confining lakhs of people inside their homes, even as a Red Alert threat loomed large.

Chennai recorded over 10 cm rainfall between 6 pm on October 14 to 6 pm on October 15 with many areas getting drenched with 15 cm of rainfall in a short period of time. Despite some waterlogging, the arterial roads were commutable but the interior roads were full of water causing inconvenience to many who had to wade through knee-deep water in many parts of the city.

Many localities in north Chennai, which usually bears the Monsoon brunt, and are situated in low-lying areas like Velachery, and Pallikaranai were the worst-affected due to Tuesday’s rains, even as they waited with bated breath to witness what is in store for them on Wednesday.

MeT department has issued a Red Alert to Chennai, Tiruvallur, Kanchipuram, and Chengalpattu districts prompting the government to declare a holiday on Wednesday to schools, colleges, and private and government establishments that don’t fall under the emergency category.

Southern Railway cancelled four trains from Dr MGR Chennai Central and rescheduled several other trains to near-by stations due to waterlogging on a railway over-bridge in north Chennai. As the city continued to receive heavy rains, Chief Minister M K Stalin and his deputy Udhayanidhi visited the control rooms and affected areas, besides interacting with sanitary workers.

Weathermen said two weather systems – a well-marked low pressure area over Central Part of South Bay of Bengal and a depression over West Central Arabian Sea off Oman coast – are causing the rains to Tamil Nadu.

“Heavy rains will continue for another two days and reduce gradually,” S Balachandran, Director, Regional Meteorological Centre, said. The IMD’s Red Alert means that the region could receive over 20 cm of rainfall, which is being corroborated by independent weather bloggers.

Heavy rains forced authorities to close six of the 22 subways, while 26 teams from the NDRF and SDRF have been positioned in Chennai and coastal districts.

Unwilling to take chances after coming under severe criticism last year, the government said it has kept ready about 1,200 relief centres in Chennai and three adjoining districts to lodge people affected by rains, while nearly 500 boats are kept on stand-by to transport people out of marooned areas along with hundreds of pumps to drain the water out, tree cutters, and JCBs.

Since the rainfall could be about 20 cm, the district administrations have been asked to put in place a detailed plan to evacuate people from their homes and reach help to them.

While citizens fear a rerun of the 2023 floods with several roads dug up for metro and other construction work, the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) claimed it is prepared to face the monsoon along with the people.

The civic body is in the process of enrolling about 10,000 volunteers to help rescue and relief personnel in case of any exigency.