Government dithers, then shuts schools as Chennai braces for more rain

CHENNAI: After taking a battering from just four days of rainfall from Monday and left bracing for more, the city on Thursday had little assurance coming its way from the government, which has for the best part since the onset of the

northeast monsoon

on October 27 made inaccurate claims about its rain preparedness and dithered or made hasty decisions on issues such as declaring schools closed.

Vague weather forecasts from the Met office, to be fair, have not helped the government. A lack of clarity on how heavy the rain would be the next day left the authorities in a cleft stick for more than 12 hours on Thursday -indicating in the after noon that schools would stay open on Friday , only to declare a holiday after heavy evening showers.

Schools in Chennai, which have already lost precious time, will be shut for a fourth successive day on Friday despite the fact that rainfall on Tuesday (4.1cm) and Wednesday (4cm) was not nearly heavy enough to warrant a government-ordered closure in a knee-jerk reaction to Monday's 11.6cm of rainfall. With independent weather forecas ters, who have mostly got it right, predicting rain in the city over the next three to four days, schools remained uncertain about when they could get back to routine.

Meanwhile, torrential rains inundated many parts of

Tirunelveli

and wreaked havoc in other districts along the state's coastline. The Met office predicted rain across most southern districts for the next few days.