Rains continued to lash several parts of Chennai and its suburbs on Thursday due to a depression over the Bay of Bengal , leading to water logging and power cuts in many areas.
The social media is flooded with messages of flooding; water stagnation and power cut in many parts of the city. Subways in T Nagar are closed with water clogged till the road level.
Despite the heavy rain, thousands of relief workers were seen toiling through the day to clear the water logging.
Minister for Revenue and Disaster Management KKSSR Ramachandran in a statement said the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said the depression in the Bay may cross the coast near Chennai on Thursday between north Tamil Nadu and south Andhra Pradesh coast.
In the last 24 hours, the average rainfall in the State was 21.02 mm with Chengalpattu district recording a maximum of 130.64 mm.
As of this morning, discharge of surplus water from major reservoirs were — 3,000 cubic feet from the Red Hills; 2,151 cubic feet from Chembarambakkam; 6,000 cubic feet from Poondi and 2,015 cubic feet from Cholavaram.
Heavy thunderstorms may been seen in Chennai, Tiruvallur, Kallakurichi, Salem, Vellore, Tirupattur, Ranipet and Tiruvannamalai districts. Chennai, Kancheepuram, Thiruvallur and Chengalpattu districts may experience strong ground winds of 40 to 45 km/h for the next 6 hours.
To expedite rescue and relief operations, 10 teams of NDRF have been sent to Cuddalore, Nagapattinam, Madurai and Tiruvallur districts and three teams each to Chengalpattu and Metropolitan Chennai Corporation. Two teams each of Tamil Nadu Disaster Response Force have been sent to Thanjavur and Cuddalore districts, the statement said.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister MK Stalin has a team of Ministers to assess losses caused by heavy rains to standing crops in delta districts. The Ministers are I Periyasamy; Thangam Thennarasu; KR Periyakaruppan; S Reghupathy; Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi and Siva V Meyyanathan.
He also chaired a meeting of senior Ministers and officials in the Secretariat to review the situation due to heavy rains reported in various parts of the State.