Troops join rescue teams in flooded Chennai
RESIDENTIAL AREAS ARE INUNDATED, FACTORIES, AIRPORT FORCED TO CLOSE
India yesterday deployed troops to Tamil Nadu and closed the main airport at Chennai after heavy rain exacerbated weeks of flooding that have killed nearly 200 people in the southern state.
Thousands of passengers were left stranded at the international airport in the state capital after flooding on the runway forced the cancellation of dozens of flights.
Authorities said thousands of rescuers carrying diving equipment, inflatable boats and medical equipment were also battling to evacuate victims across the flooded state.
“At least 10,000 police personnel and trained swimmers are being deployed to help with the rescue effort,” said Chennai police chief J. K. Tripathy.
“The situation is a little grim. Some urban areas are totally flooded,” said S.P. Selvan, deputy inspector general of the National Disaster Response Force.
The heaviest rainfall in more than a century caused massive flooding across the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, driving thousands from their homes, shutting auto factories and paralysing the airport in the state capital Chennai.
The national weather office predicted three more days of torrential downpours in the southern state of nearly 70 million people.
“There will be no respite,” Laxman Singh Rathore of the India Meteorological Department told reporters yesterday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has blamed climate change for the rain, injecting urgency into the debate at global climate talks in Paris and highlighting the vulnerability of tropical nations like India to extreme weather.
Physician Rupam Choudhury said he and a friend had to wade through neck-deep water to reach high ground from where an army unit brought him to his hospital in the heart of Chennai.
The Dr A. Ramachandran’s Diabetes Hospital was running out of oxygen for patients and diesel for power generators, he said by phone. Most mobile networks were down in the city and food supplies were running low.
Chennai, India’s fourth most populous city, is a major auto manufacturing and IT outsourcing hub. Ford Motor, Daimler, Hyundai and Nissan told workers to stay at home, while US listed outsourcing firm Cognizant/shut its 11 local offices.
Flights Stopped
Airlines suspended flights into Chennai’s flooded international airport, causing wider disruption to air travel.
“The biggest challenge is to find a way to clear the inundated airport and main roads,” said Anurag Gupta at the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) in New Delhi.
Passengers stranded at the airport said they did not know when they would be able to fly, or where to stay if they could not.
“All of us here are getting agitated because none of the hotels nearby are vacant. Where do we go?” traveller Vinit Jain said.
The extent of damage would only become clear when the floodwaters receded, another NDMA official said. The federal home ministry said 18 people had suffered flood-related injuries.
Weather experts say the seasonal northeast monsoon was responsible for the flooding in the city of six million, which like many of India’s teeming cities lacks adequate drainage.
Jatin Singh, founder of private weather forecaster Skymet, said the northeast monsoon was typically more intense in years like this when El Nino — or a warming of the waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean — prevailed.