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Chennai city and suburbs today started picking up crumbs of life with flood waters receding in several areas but lakhs of people continued to suffer from lack of supply of essentials including water, power, milk and food items. (AP)
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Tragedy stuck a noted private hospital when 18 patients were said to have lost their lives when a sudden black out on Wednesday caused snapping of oxygen supply in the ICU. However, Tamil Nadu Health Secretary Radhakrishnan had a word of caution saying all the deaths could be due to ventilator failure or lack of oxygen supply as deaths have occurred over a period of three days. The cause of deaths was being probed. (AP)
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Anger spilled on to the streets when senior ministers Natham Viswanathan, Sellur Raju and Gokul Indira visited R K Nagar, Chief Minister Jayalalithaa's constituency, where people gheraoed and heckled them forcing them to make a hasty retreat. Similar scenes were witnessed in several areas where ventilated their anger at officials complaining lack of any help from authorities in their hour of distress. (AP)
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Intermittent rains in the city in areas like Kodambakkam, T. Nagar, Adyar and Kotturpuram and suburban Tambaram today threatened to revive the ghost of flooding again but the weatherman has forecast only light rains for Chennai in the next 24 hours. Heavy to very heavy rains have been forecast for south coastal and interior districts and Puducherry. (PTI)
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Mobile phone services, which had taken a severe beating following the heavy downpour on Tuesday, were partially restored even as other services such as ATMs continued to remain shut. After a day-long dry spell yesterday, some areas in and around the city showers in the night but Friday morning saw some bright skies with people out on the streets. (PTI)
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Milk supplies were erratic and many citizens complained that vegetables were still being sold at high rates. While supply of state-run Aavin-milk packets were totally hit, a packet of one litre milk sold by private suppliers was priced at Rs 90, whereas 1 kg tomato was available at Rs 80/90. Transport services were also showing signs of picking up. Limited commercial flight operations have started this morning from the Rajali naval air station in Arakkonam near Chennai. (PTI)
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Train services on the suburban Chennai Arakonnam stretch were partially restored. Southern Railway officials said they were yet to take a call on restoration of services on the other busy Tambaram-Chennai beach route which covers both business and residential areas. The Chennai Metro line continued to witness enhanced patronage in the wake of suspension of bus and rail transport. Personnel of the army, navy and air force were deployed in the worst-affected areas rescuing people and reaching relief to the victims of nature's unprecedented fury in the city and the suburbs. (PTI)
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Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa and Prime Minister Narendra Modi had yesterday conducted separate aerial surveys of the areas battered by the unprecedented rains that have killed 269 people till now. After their separate aerial surveys, Jayalalithaa had yesterday met the Prime Minister and urged for an immediate relief of Rs 5,000 crore, to which he responded by announcing Rs 1000 crore more for relief work in Tamil Nadu. This will be in addition to the Rs 940 crore already announced by the Centre. (Reuters)
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Supply of fuel in the city has taken a hit due to "logistic problems" faced by oil companies even as availability of essential commodities like milk, water and vegetables remain affected across Tamil Nadu today. Since most of the places across Chennai and its suburbs have been cut off due to heavy rain, oil tankers were unable to transport fuel, according to Indian Oil Corporation officials. Absence of tanker drivers has compounded the problem. (Reuters)
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Supply of vegetables was also hit with local outlets having little or no stock and prices continued to rise as fresh arrivals at the Koyambedu market were hampered. Also, the popular idli-dosa batter stores in the city selling ready-to-make batter were shut, inconveniencing residents. Power supply was not restored in most parts of the city and sub-urbs. As a result, there was no water availability. (Reuters)
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