Heavy rain floods India’s Chennai

Life in Chennai came to a standstill and at least 197 people were killed as the southern capital came under several metres of floodwaters.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Jayalalithaa final night and guaranteed all assist from the Centre.

Citing government estimates, Indo-Asian News Service reports that 72,119 people are now housed in 432 relief camps in Chennai.

Leading actors of Telugu cinema announced contribution for relief in Tamil Nadu with Junior NTR pledging assistance of Rs. 10 lakh, his actor-brother Kalyanram Rs. 5 lakh, and Sampoornesh Babu announcing Rs.50,000 for relief.

“The situation in Tamil Nadu is very bad”.

Authorities said more than a million people were affected by the flooding, with some residents bemoaning the slow response of the relief teams.

India’s major newspaper, The Hindu, did not publish on Tuesday for the first time since 1878, although its Internet presence advised residents of Tamil Nadu of conditions and advice on coping with the floods. Even in the few ATMs that were open, serpentine queues were witnessed and people stocked up on supplies in the wake of more rains being forecast for the coming days.

Torrential rain triggered massive flooding for the second time in about two weeks in southern India, shutting down a major airport, swamping streets and canceling schools in the city of Chennai and surrounding areas.

Thousands of individuals are being evacuated from submerged areas in pockets of Chennai and most locations in and across the suburban West Tambaram. The worst-affected districts are Kancheepuram with 154% excess rainfall, Vellore (136%) and Tiruvallur (139%). “Here we are talking about the scale of destruction and such rains which have happened after 100 years”.

India endures serious floods annually through the yearly monsoon rains from June to September.

“There is an increase in the frequency of extreme weather events and there is a reduction in the number of rainy days”.

“There will be no respite”, Laxman Singh Rathore of the India Meteorological Department told reporters Wednesday.

“Variability of rainfall in terms of quantity, wet spells and durations is increasing, which means uncertainly is also increasing”.

“Urbanisation and unplanned growth are the main contributing factors for floods in Chennai, which is also a lesson for both upcoming and existing metros like Delhi, Bengaluru, Mumbai”, he added. I raised this issue in the all-party meet.

The state government has put the total loss due to the floods in the state at Rs.8,481 crore. What is the system of assessment?

Ministries of Railways and Civil Aviation were asked to coordinate with the State Government for safe and quick evacuation of stranded passengers.

The years 2007, 2008 and 2009 also recorded excess rainfall, but they were not due to the El Nino effect.