For the fifth consecutive day, Chennai and its neighbouring districts of Kanchipuram, Thiruvallur and Chengelpet are reeling under heavy rains. Many localities in Chennai received torrential rains for over 15 hours and are now inundated. The city received 100mm rainfall from yesterday evening to early this morning.
The Ennore Port recorded 175mm rain from November 10 morning till Thursday early morning. Nungambakkam recorded 138.4mm and Meenambakkam recorded 124.5mm, thus inundating most parts of Chennai and its suburbs in waist-deep water. As many as 21 trees fell in Chennai.
At least 11 subways in Chennai have been filled with water, namely the Vyasarpadi, Ganeshapuram, Ajax, Gangu Reddy, Madley, Duraiswamy, Aranganathan, Villivakkam, Kakkan bridge, Pazhavanthagal and Tambaram subways. Traffic has been closed in these subways.
Roads in certain parts of the city including the K.K. Nagar, Mylapore, E.V.R. Salai, Pulianthope, Vyasarpadi and Perambur have been closed. Electricity in inundated parts of the city has also been suspended. Officials at the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board say that power supply will soon be restored in most parts of the city.
The heavy rains have led to the release of water from the four reservoirs that are the major source of drinking water for Chennai. The Chembarambakkam lake, the water release from which led to the flooding of Chennai in 2015, has reached the full reservoir level (FRL) and 2,000 cusecs of water are released from it.
The storage levels in other reservoirs surrounding Chennai—Cholavaram, Poondi and Puzhal—range between 73.66 per cent to 83.21 per cent.
Apart from these four lakes, the Thervoy Kandigai reservoir which was built in 2020 to support Chennai’s drinking needs has touched 100 per cent. The water from this reservoir, though built for Chennai's drinking water needs, has not been used at all for more than eight months.
The Tamil Nadu government has said that the state has registered a rainfall of 52 per cent above normal during this northeast monsoon season from October 1 to November 10. The recorded rain is 38.81cm, while the usual is 25.52cm for this period.
Following the heavy rains across Tamil Nadu, out of the 90 important reservoirs across the state, 53 have reached 76 per cent.
Out of the 14,138 water bodies across the state, water storage in around 9,153 of them have crossed 50 per cent and the water level is 100 per cent in around 3,691 lakes, according to reports from the water resources and PWD departments.
Meanwhile, winds were recorded at speeds of 40-45kmph according to the IMD reports. In its latest bulletin, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said the weather system was moving west-northwestwards at a speed of 4kmph.
The IMD has forecast heavy to very heavy rains till evening over Chennai, Puducherry and other northern districts due to the influence of a depression over the Bay of Bengal off the north coast of Tamil Nadu.
