A day after being ravaged by Cyclone Vardah, a resolute and stoic Chennai, well-served by an army of Corporation workers and volunteers, began picking up the pieces and bounced back on its feet.
From early on Tuesday, civic officials, government utilities and volunteers got into the trenches to clear the fallen trees and other cyclone debris on arterial roads and began restoring a semblance of normality.
Power supply, which had been cut off on Monday morning before winds hit the city, was back in some areas in the heart of Chennai and its suburbs. Communication networks too were being restored, although perhaps not as speedily as the city’s residents may have wanted.
Many neighbourhoods are still dotted with uprooted trees and damaged walls, bearing testimony to the fury of Monday’s severe cyclonic storm.
In scenes reminiscent of December 2015, when Chennai was inundated by unprecedented floods, the Chennai Corporation rushed in workers from other cities to help with the recovery efforts.
“We reached the city early on Tuesday in vans and buses, took a short break and immediately started work,” said Suresh from Tiruppur, as his team cleared the road for traffic in congested Mylapore.
Near Foreshore Estate, a coastal residential area, a team from Thanjavur was busy lopping off branches from a fallen tree that was obstructing the main road. “We have been asked to get all the roads in this area cleared in two days,” said a Chennai Corporation official overseeing the work. “We may take one more day, but it will be done,” he said.
“We have been given new equipment,” he added, pointing to a worker deftly handling a petrol-engine driven chainsaw with an extender arm that makes short work of tree branches. “We have always had a few of these, but now we have procured a couple of dozen more for this area,” the official said.
At Nungambakkam, workers from Erode Municipal Corporation were busy clearing the road to a children’s hospital, which was blocked by a huge tree, forcing ambulances to take a detour.
Corporation officials have been assigned to specific zones, with deadlines to get the roads cleared, say officials.
Personnel from the State Disaster Response Force could be seen in some of the worst-affected parts of the city. Although Chennai is accustomed to flooding and water-logging during this time of the year, the severe cyclonic storm, the most severe in recent decades, posed a new kind of challenge.