With the record-breaking
rainfall in the city and its suburbs could reduce this burgeoning metropolis by
the coast into islands of misery, but not break the resilience of its people. People started posting status on twitter
and facebook post; updating emergency numbers, places to stay, boats to
deployed, docs on call. Even restaurants
pitched in helping out with food supply!!
With rivers
swelling and submerging bridges and lakes in the suburbs overflowing their
banks, several thousands of people were left homeless or stranded in their own
homes without food, water and electricity.
The airport
was closed for the second successive day and
will remain so till Sunday noon; several trains to the southern parts of the
city were cancelled; and with even arterial roads closed partially, buses were
off the road.
Suspension of power
supply and disruption of telephone networks added to the woes. The record
rainfall — 29.4 cm in the city and 49 cm in Tambaram in 24 hours from 8.30 a.m.
on Tuesday — coupled with the increased discharge of water from reservoirs
around the city hampered rescue operations and paralysed life. The previous
highest rainfall in the city on a single day in December was recorded in 1901
A portion of a
two-decade-old bridge collapsed on the Avadi-Poonamallee High Road near
Tiruverkadu on Wednesday afternoon. Water flowing on the channel below the
bridge and draining into Parithipattu reportedly eroded the base of the
pillars. Suburban train services were cancelled as girders shifted on the
bridge across the Adyar, between Saidapet and the Guindy. Water washed away the
ballast below the tracks between Urapakkam and Guduvanchery, Southern Railway
officials said.
While the Army, the
Navy, the Air Force and the National Disaster Response Force joined the State
Fire and Rescue Services and the police in rescue efforts, the calamity was of
such intensity that their combined might was not enough to attend to the number
of distress calls pouring through the day.
The Navy has decided to deploy a rescue ship from
its Eastern Command in Visakhapatnam on Thursday. With its helicopters
stationed here unable to take to the skies, the Coast Guard is flying in
choppers from Mumbai and Goa.
Unfazed by the
massive crisis, Chennaiites reached out to the homeless, giving shelter and
rescuing hundreds of marooned people via the social network. At places such as
Tambaram, Mudichur and Velachery in the southern suburbs and Anna Nagar in
western Chennai, people rescued fellow citizens from buildings with submerged
ground floors and water rising to the first floors. Displaying ingenuity in the
face of crisis, they used makeshift boats made of drums and rubber and whatever
else they could lay their hands on to bring people to safety.