Chennai still reeling from devastating floods amid hampered rescue efforts

Chennai is slowly limping back to normalcy but the city is still on edge as many areas witnessed heavy rains this morning.

Officials said the runway at Chennai International Airport was partly opened while more than half of Chennai’s 859 city areas remain under water.

The relentless rains that lashed southern India’s Tamil Nadu state for three days eased Friday, but the misery of tens of thousands of people was far from over, with large parts of the main city still underwater along with the region’s biggest airport. The donations will be used for the procurement and distribution of food items, water, household essentials and basic medical supplies for those in need.

Despite combined rescue efforts by the military and civilian emergency services, help had yet to reach many areas and city-dwellers were growing impatient.

The DG said the force is stepping up its operations each day and now their aim is to provide water and food to as many marooned people as they can.

He said four commercial flights were operated from INS Rajali Naval base.

Railway services resumed partially, with a few trains running from Chennai’s main train station.

“We are also using social media extensively, our helpline is working very effectively and we have inducted a number of technological driven operations”, Singh added. He said officials from different political parties had visited the area but done little to help.

City authorities were deploying bulldozers and bags of concrete to fix collapsed roads, while several bridges were under water as urban lakes in the low-lying coastal city of six million overflowed. The high water has closed the airport and hundreds of passengers are stranded.

“Water-logging continues. The exclusively mercy is that there are not any recent rains”, stated Vishwanath, a south Chennai resident.

“We hope that this will be of some assistance to those affected by the floods and demonstrate Singapore’s solidarity with the people of Tamil Nadu during this hard period”, Mr Balakrishnan said.

A senior federal official said more than 700 people had been critically injured and were rushed to government hospitals by paramilitary forces. After their separate aerial surveys, Jayalalithaa had yesterday met the Prime Minister and urged for an immediate relief of Rs 5,000 crore, to which he responded by announcing Rs 1000 crore more for relief work in Tamil Nadu. “We will have to resurrect an entire city”, said Abhijit Shaw, an army officer who was setting up a makeshift maternity ward in a government building.

Many parts of the city and its neighbourhood were still reeling from power suspension even as false rumours of breach in Chembarapakkam lake in the night kept people living on its bank on tenterhooks.