The North-East monsoon triggered widespread floods across Tamil Nadu, submerging homes and damaging paddy fields. Civic officials said on Thursday they are working to clear inundated water and drainage blockages. While heavy rain stalled infrastructure work, it also helped fill major dams, with reservoir levels rising across the state.
CHENNAI: The ongoing North-East monsoon has been triggering a surge at the water falls in the districts and increasing the water levels in the reservoirs across Tamil Nadu.
Overnight rain caused floods and waterlogging in parts of Chennai and in the southern districts of Tamil Nadu.
Persistent rain in Kanyakumari district has caused major issues, as floodwaters entered inside people houses, forcing people to leave their house. Vehicles and essential household goods have been submerged or damaged by the water.
Civic officials are currently working to clear the inundated water from houses and are also simultaneously checking the local drainage systems to clear blockages that may be exacerbating the flooding, an official said on Thursday.
Maximum temperatures range around 29 degrees Celsius to 32 degrees Celsius, and minimum temperatures hover around 24 degrees Celsius to 26 degrees Celsius.
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The IMD has warned of light to moderate rain with thunderstorm and lightning likely at isolated places over Krishnagiri, Dharmapuri, Erode, Namakkal, Coimbatore, Dindigul, Virudhunagar, Tenkasi, Thoothukudi, Perambalur, Tiruchirappalli, Thiruvarur, Cuddalore, and Thanjavur districts.
Roads in several areas, including Avadi, T Nagar, Velachery, and Old Washermenpet in Chennai got heavily riddled with potholes, muddy depressions, and infrastructure work was stalled on account of the heavy rain. This has forced the suspension of MTC bus routes in parts like Secretariat Colony.
In Madurai, heavy rain has completely submerged over 140 acres of freshly planted paddy fields in villages and farmers have reported that the lack of desilted irrigation canals is causing the standing crops to rot, leading to calls for state crop compensation.
In some Cauvery delta districts, farmers noted the initial spells were still sporadic and inadequate to fully sustain the samba paddy crop.
As the northeast monsoon intensified, inflows to primary drinking water sources and irrigation dams are seeing a significant rise.
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The combined storage of Chennai's core reservoirs - six primary reservoirs supplying drinking water to Chennai (including Red Hills, Chembarambakkam, and Cholavaram) has risen rapidly to 37 per cent capacity following the initial heavy spells.
The water level in the Vaigai dam has risen steadily to 44.88 feet (up from 43 feet last week) due to robust inflows, while the storage in Mullaperiyar dam reached 116.90 feet, in Papanasam dam, the level climbed to 48 feet over the past week and Perunchani dam saw the storage increase to 44.35 feet.
The IMD predicted moderate to heavy rainfall across Tamil Nadu and Puducherry until October 26.