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Five days after flooding, Chennai wages grim battle
Large parts of the city’s low-lying neighbourhoods in the north and south remained inundated in chest-deep water, that started to recede on Friday, with households still without electricity or essential supplies.
Five days after unrelenting rains brought by cyclone Michaung submerged most of Chennai, wrecked civic infrastructure and cut off power for millions of residents, large parts of the city’s low-lying neighbourhoods in the north and south remained inundated in chest-deep water, that started to recede on Friday, with households still without electricity or essential supplies.
Velachery, Perungudi, Kodungaiyur, Choolaimedu, Semmechery, Thiru-Vi Ka Nagar and Pulianthope areas were still underwater on Friday evening, said residents and officials, with authorities using helicopters to drop food packets on rooftops.
The toll from Chennai’s worst floods in eight years — which saw nearly 500mm of rain pummel the city in 36 hours between December 3 and 4 — rose to 20, said police officers, warning that the number would likely inch as waters recede and rescuers retrieve more bodies. Rescuers retrieved two bodies from a 60-foot deep trench in Guindy in south Chennai on Friday morning, said officials
To be sure, the floodwaters have receded from most neighbourhoods on higher ground, largely in the centre of the city, including Royapettah, Adyar, Anna Salai, East Coast Road, as local authorities began resuming power supply and repairing roads.
Still, for residents of Chennai’s densely populated fringes, the bruising impact of cyclone Michaung, which made landfall in Bapatla in Andhra Pradesh on Tuesday, is a painful reminder of the city’s vulnerability to climate-wreaked disaster.
P Raju, a resident of Kodungaiyur in north Chennai, has been without power for four days and his home ringfenced by a six-foot moat of rainwater. His complaints to Chennai’s mayor, commissioner of the Greater Chennai Corporation and district collector have gone unanswered.
“I have approached everyone, but no one has visited us to help even after four days,” said Raju, who works in a private logistics company and lives on the first floor with his family.
His vehicles and home were submerged on Sunday, forcing him to shift to a higher floor to temporarily live with neighbours.
“Without electricity we have had no access to safe drinking water,” he added.
V Naveen along with his wife and a one-year-old child were rescued by a boat from Semmechery in south Chennai on December 6. “The scariest thing was not just the flood water increasing, but snakes started entering our home,” Ganesan said. After getting rescued, along with his family he left Chennai to his native district of Pollachi in Tamil Nadu, which was not affected by the cyclone.
Residents in some parts of the city, including Velachery in south Chennai and Egmore in central Chennai surrounded their local legislators – the Congress’s JHM Aassan Maulaana and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s (DMK) I Paranthaman respectively – demanding that power supplies be restored, according to videos posted on social media platforms.
Tamil Nadu chief secretary Shiv Das Meena said various government departments are working together to draw up a list of places where waterlogging persists and those that are still shorn of electricity.
“We are reviewing this every three hours and resuming power supply step by step,” Meena said.
“Transport and milk supply has returned to normalcy. We are improving the supply of drinking water.”
Schools and colleges have remained closed since December 4 and will reopen on Monday, he added.
While Chennai’s metro continued its operations even during the cyclone, road transports were halted from December 5 onwards.
Meanwhile, the Tamil Nadu administration began using drones to survey the damage and extend aid to affected people.
