E-Paper
TN capital looks to pick up pieces, limp back to normalcy after cyclone
Officials said that schools and colleges in Chennai, which have been shut since December 4, will reopen on Monday even as the city slowly crawled back to normalcy
Six days after cyclone Michaung hit Chennai, leading to widespread devastation, electricity was restored in the city after the last neighbourhood, Saibalaji Nagar abutting a marshland in Pallikaranai, was back on the grid on Sunday.
“This is the last place we had to give power supply. With this entire Chennai has power supply,” said Tamil Nadu chief secretary Shiv Das Meena.
Nearly six feet of stormwater accumulated in parts of the city after cyclone Michaung, which hit Chennai on December 4, brought life to a standstill. The city received torrential rains of nearly 500mm in 36 hours between December 3 and 4.
Officials said that schools and colleges in Chennai, which have been shut since December 4, will reopen on Monday even as the city slowly crawled back to normalcy.
Meanwhile, a central team of six members will arrive in Chennai on Monday evening to assess damages for two days, said officials. The next focus of the government would be to contain communicable diseases in the aftermath of the cyclone. According to officials, workers have fanned out across the city to collect garbage which now includes house items such as mattresses and electronics destroyed during the torrential rains. Since December 6, the corporation has collected 28,563 tonne of garbage. More than 51,000 people have been screened in health camps conducted by the corporation of which more than 20,000 have availed treatment, people aware of the matter have said.
As many as 1,351 trees were uprooted due to the cyclone of which 96 need to be cleared, said an official of the Greater Chennai Corporation. “Our main challenge now is garbage. We couldn’t collect the garbage until December 5. We are doing conversancy operations on a war footing,” said Meena.
Even as the government and civic bodies worked on restoring life, some neighbourhoods that were marooned during the cyclone complained of being “neglected”. Officials including Meena and corporation commissioner J Radhakrishnan continued to face the ire of the public in neighbourhoods where they went to inspect on Sunday.
“We are using our own workers to clean the slush and garbage,” said J Nanda, a resident of Kodungaiyur. “Neither an official nor a sanitary worker has come to our neighbourhood,” Nanda alleged.
When asked if the stormwater drains worked, Meena said that the drain network which is now more integrated into the city’s centre such as in T Nagar and Alwarpet was efficient, adding that the problem was more profound in the suburbs that have been added to Chennai and still do not have drain connectivity.
