Floods kill more than 70 in Tamil Nadu state
India deploys forces as part of rescue effort
CHENNAI: India has deployed the army and air force to rescue flood-hit residents in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, where at least 71 people have died in around a week of torrential rains.
Media reports said military helicopters were being used to drop food and drinking water to the worst-hit areas, while schools and businesses in state capital Chennai had been forced to close.
Twelve children and 10 adults were airlifted to safety on Monday, the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency quoted an official as saying.
PTI said at least 71 people had died since the rains started last week, with the neighbouring states of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka also affected. “The rain that was meant to be spread out over the monsoon months has poured in just a few days,” Tamil Nadu’s Chief Minister Jayalalithaa Jayaram told reporters during a visit to a flood-hit area in Chennai.
“No precautionary measures would have managed to prevent water logging and damages. In areas where flooding and damage have been caused, relief, rescue and repair works are being taken up on a war footing,” she said.
Television footage showed families in Chennai using canoes to get through waistdeep waters.
Several lakes and reservoirs i n regions adjoining Chennai and nearby Kancheepuram district breached their banks and inundated large areas, local official E Sundaravalli said.
More than 2,000 people were marooned in high-rise buildings in the Tambaram area on the outskirts of Chennai, NDTV news channel reported. So far, more than 7,000 people had been rescued, an official at the National Disaster Management Authority control room in Chennai said.
Ms Jayalalithaa said the government was “working day and night” to bring relief to victims of the floods, caused by a cyclonic depression formed in the Bay of Bengal.
She announced a relief fund of 5 billion rupees (2.7 billion baht), according to PTI.
India suffers severe flooding every year during the annual monsoon rains, which cover the subcontinent from June to September.
Dozens died this year in flooding in the northeastern state of Assam.
The Indian Meteorological Department warned yesterday of further heavy rain in the north of the state.
Fishermen were advised not to put to sea along the coasts of Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry, the department said in a bulletin.