“I have seen the damage and misery caused by the extremely heavy rainfall”, said another of his tweet. The cloudburst earlier this week dumped as much as 345 mm (14 inches) of rain over 24 hours. Met officials said the state hasn’t been lashed by such a downpour in 100 years. The airports, railway lines and road routes have also been disrupted.
Advertisement
“The Government of India stands by people of Tamil Nadu. Wherever it is possible we are trying to reach”, he told reporters outside Parliament.
After auto manufacturers and IT outsourcing firms suspended operations on Wednesday, state-run Chennai Petroleum shut down its 210,000-barrels-per-day oil refinery due to heavy flooding.
The Southern Railway has cancelled several trains and diverted and rescheduled many more because of the flooding of tracks, leaving hundreds of passengers stranded at some stations.
A senior federal official said more than 1,000 people had been critically injured and were rushed to government hospitals by paramilitary forces.
Sources said as per DGCA (Directorate General of Civil Aviation) rules, a trial landing is a compulsory requirement before passenger operations can begin at an airport.
Arakkonam is about 70 km from Chennai. Suburban services too are crippled.
“This is really alarming as everybody knows that entire Chennai and districts like Kanchipuram, Thiruvallur and Kangloor are under water”, she added. Seven more teams have reached there.
About 30 families have been sleeping rough under a flyover in central Chennai for the last week, after their huts and small concrete houses were washed away. IMD has predicted heavy rains for the next two to three days in Tamil Nadu.
The Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary requested his AP counterpart if the outflow from the Pichatur and other dams in Chittoor district, neighbouring TN, can be reduced as the flow of water is likely to flood Thiruvallur district in Tamil Nadu, it said. The water level is decreasing in many areas.
Advertisement
Naval divers and inflatable boats have been deployed at Adyar and Kotturpuram. The marooned risked lives to stock up on supplies as more rain was forecast. In the few that were open, long queues formed.
