Chennai City seems to be heading for a crisis as the
government has started releasing 20,000 cubic feet per second of water from
Chembarambakkam reservoir into Adyar. This is the highest volume of outflow
from the reservoir in several years. On November 17, a day after the city
received over 25 centimetres of rainfall, Public Works Department released
18,000 cusecs of water from the reservoir.
Chennai Collector E. Sundaravalli has issued a flood warning and
appealed to families living along the Adyar river to move to safer places.
Earlier in the day, it was increased to 5,000 cubic feet per second. The
outflow was just 900 cusecs on Monday evening.
After all the battering the city had over the last month, heavy rains
resumed overnight on Monday after a brief break for four days. For the 24 hours
ending 8.30 a.m. on Tuesday, the rainfall level recorded in the city was 3
centimetres. Between morning and noon, the city received more than 8
centimetres, officials said.
Suburban train services on the Chennai Beach-Tambaram sector
were crippled. Services on the Chennai Central-Tiruvallur sector were also
disrupted. Arterial roads were flooded and traffic was affected.
The forecast
is no better for Wednesday with the weather office forecasting heavy to very
heavy rainfall for Tamil Nadu, especially over the northern districts of
Chennai, Tiruvallur and Kancheepuram. It also forecast heavy rains for
Puducherry.
“The trough
of low pressure now lies over Southwest Bay adjoining Sri Lanka off Tamil
Nadu,” officials at the Regional Meteorological Centre (RMC) told PTI. Under
its influence, widespread rains are expected across the State on Wednesday,
with the possibility of “scattered heavy to isolated very heavy rainfall over
coastal districts,” they said.
The weather
office forecast “isolated extremely heavy rainfall” for Chennai, Kancheepuram
and Tiruvallur which have been already been facing the brunt of the northeast
monsoon since last month.