Record rain overwhelms Chennai, suburbs

Chennai: Surprise showers pelted down on Chennai non-stop for more than seven hours on Thursday, leaving the city paralysed and many roads and residential areas under knee-deep water. What started as moderate shower in the early afternoon became heavy rain by the evening, taking residents, road-users and authorities alike by surprise.
Vehicles moving at a snail’s pace were stranded on almost all main roads, including Anna Salai and Poonamallee High Road, for hours, and the worst-hit were the office-goers returning home and other road-users.It was an unprecedented pile-up of vehicles from Royapettah up to the airport, said a commuter.
At the end of the day, rainfall ranging from 8cm (airport) upto 18cm (MRC Nagar and Nungambakkam) had been recorded in seven hours. Chief minister M K Stalin visited the corporation control room and some rain-affected areas in the city.
City corporation commissioner Gagandeep Singh Bedi said the heavy rain came as a surprise as they were not given such a weather update. “The city did not see this much deluge even on November 7”, he said. Bedi, along with other officials, took stock of the scenario from the control room at Ripon buildings.
Core city areas such as Nungambakkam, T Nagar, Teynampet, Kodambakkam and Egmore were all flooded and vehicle-users were seen pushing their vehicles that had conked out. Water mixed with sewage entered houses in at least five of the city’s important subways, including the RBI subway on Kamarajar Salai.
More than 70% of MTC buses were stuck on road, and highways too suffered bumper-to-bumper traffic.
A lot of commuters left their vehicles on the roadside, and thronged the metro stations to get a safe and quick commute home. In response to the demand, CMRL extended its services till midnight to handle extra crowd.