Heavy rain leaves parts of Tamil Nadu flooded, normal life hit

Intermittent, widespread rains lashed Chennai and other parts of Tamil Nadu on Tuesday, bringing residential neighbourhoods and roads under knee-deep water and leading to traffic congestion besides affecting public transport services.

While bus services were affected in several areas, Southern Railway announced cancellation of four express trains including the Chennai Central-Mysuru Kaveri Express due to waterlogging. Several domestic flights were cancelled as sufficient number of passengers did not turn up to avail services.

According to the India Meteorological Department bulletin, the city received 125mm (recorded in the Nungambakkam station) of rainfall on Tuesday, even as the weather department forecast more rains for the next two days in the state.

The IMD bulletin said that on October 16, “heavy to very heavy rain with extremely heavy rain at one or two places is likely to occur over Tiruvallur, Kancheepuram, Chengalpattu and Chennai districts”.

Experts have attributed the heavy rainfall to two weather systems: a well-marked low-pressure area over south Bay of Bengal and a depression over west central Arabian Sea off Oman coast.

“It (the low pressure) is likely to move west-northwestwards and intensify into a depression over southwest Bay of Bengal during next 24 hours,” said the Regional Meteorological Centre (RMC) in Chennai.