Hyderabad: Though they were given the option of being flown to even their home towns Mumbai and Delhi, stranded passengers in Chennai airport and other places in Tamil Nadu rescued by the Army and Air Force personnel preferred to come to Hyderabad.
“We were told that they would be also flying to Delhi and Mumbai but it would take time. We were stuck in the Chennai airport. Even the food and water supplies had stopped from December 2. The power supply went off and shops within the airport closed down as water increased in the premises on Wednesday. Our first priority was to leave Chennai without waiting for flights to other destinations,” said Ms Vibha Singh, who arrived here with her husband Ankit Singh and their five-year-old daughter Avni Singh.
“It is the uncertainty that scares you. We don’t know what will happen. It is continuing to rain in Chennai and now there was no power supply from Wedne sday. “It is a relief to have come out safely from Chennai,” said, Shravani, Anmol Mishra and and Nipun Bhatnagar, students of VIT and SRM University.
As many as 108 passengers were rescued by the Air Force and Army teams and brought to Hyderabad in a C-17 aircraft. The rescue had an added poignancy for Ms Damini, her two daughters Akira, 2, and Zehna, 2 months, who are on a four-week trip to India from Melbourne, Australia.
“My sister’s marriage in Chandigarh is on Saturday. Luckily, we have been rescued,” said Damini’s husband Suvidh Rajni, a student of SRM University, Tamil Nadu, “The Army brought boats to shift us from our hostel rooms to the main building in the university from where we were flown in helicopters to Arakonnam.”
They were airlifted out of the Navy’s INS Rajali airbase at Arakonnam. Meanwhile, heavy rains continued to lash coastal Cuddalore district, one of the worst affected areas ever since North-East monsoon fury started early last month, and Villupuram and Kanyakumari districts and Puducherry.
