Life for people in Tamil Nadu’s Chennai continue to be difficult though the rains have stopped in the capital. Many areas in Chennai still remain under water and supplies of essentials was difficult, said residents.
“Water logging continues to be there. The only mercy was that there were no rains,” said Viswanath, a resident.
The water flow in Adyar river has come down and the amount of surplus water was released into the river from the Chembarambakkam lake. The Southern Railways have announced special trains to Tirunelveli, Rameswaram and Howrah from Chennai Beach station. The power supply was restored in the areas where water has receded, but it was still cut in many other places.
However, communication lines — landline and mobile — continued to be disrupted.
In heavily flooded areas like Mudichur and Tambaram, people were looking up to the skies praying for the rains to stop, and for relief materials.
Meanwhile, the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) said in Paris that Chennai could have fared better if it had protected and preserved its natural water bodies and drainage channels.
“We have repeatedly drawn attention to the fact that our urban sprawls such as Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai, Srinagar and others have not paid adequate attention to the natural water bodies that exist in them,” said CSE Director General Sunita Narain.
“In Chennai, each of its lakes has a natural flood discharge channel which drains the spillover. But we have built over many of these water bodies, blocking the smooth flow of water. We have forgotten the art of drainage. We only see land for buildings, not for water,” she said.