IAF sorties also began reconnaissance trips, dropping food packets for those stranded.
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Rains to be continued in Chennai for the next 24 hours!
President Pranab Mukherjee today condoled the loss of lives and damange to infrastructure in Chennai and several other parts of Tamil Nadu due to heavy rains.
“There will be no respite”, Laxman Singh Rathore of the India Meteorological Department said yesterday.
The death toll in the rains that have lashed the city and other parts of the state has gone up to 197, officials said.
Earlier in the day, the Prime Minister had met with urban development minister Venkaiah Naidu and defence minister Manohar Parrikar to review the ground reality.
Dr A Ramachandran’s Diabetes Hospital was running out of oxygen for patients and diesel for power generators, he said by telephone.
Surplus water from Poondi reservoir, which supplies water to Chennai, was released, causing more misery.
Chennai, India’s fourth most populous city, is a major auto manufacturing and IT outsourcing hub. We need much more because the situation is so grave and the help that has come is not enough. According to ANI, the Indian Air Force airlifted 200 people to safety around noon on Thursday.
The main train station was so heavily flooded Thursday that it had to halt operations. On Wednesday, the airport’s lounges were packed with hundreds of stranded passengers and TV reports said AAI was trying to evacuate them to Tirupati and Bengaluru. “Where do we go?” traveller Vinit Jain told Reuters Television.
Weather experts say the seasonal northeast monsoon was responsible for the flooding in the city of six million, but was amplified this year by El Nino, a warming of the eastern Pacific Ocean that can have far-reaching climate effects.
Singh explained Rs. 8 had been required by the Tamil Nadu government, 480.93 crore for crore and ton devastation was launched as fast reduction.
In continuation of rescue and relief operations by the Indian Air Force in flood affected areas of Tamil Nadu and on completion of airlift of four National Disaster Relief Force (NDRF) teams from Delhi and 10 NDRF teams from Bhubaneswar to Arakkonam, four Indian Army Columns are being airlifted by the transport aircraft of the Indian Air Force today.
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“The good thing is that there is no rain since the last 12-13 hours”.
