Chennai floods: Neighbours help pregnant woman to reach hospital
Kokila’s neighbourhood was completely flooded since morning
By : DC Correspondent
Update: 2015-11-17 07:00 GMT
Chennai: A 23-year-old pregnant woman developed labour pains while she was stranded in her house in Mudichur in Tambaram on Monday. But she managed to reach the hospital, helped by her husband and neighbours.
Kokila’s neighbourhood was completely flooded since morning. Her husband, Vasanth Kumar, made anxious calls to ambulance services. However, the ambulance did arrive but was unable to come close to their house due to flooding. The ambulance was able to park two kilometers away from their house.
As Kokila was unable to walk the distance, five neighbours gathered at their house and decided to carry Kokila on a make shift stretcher all the way to the ambulance. Kokila was then safely transferred to a private hospital, where she has been admitted and is awaiting delivery.
Ambulance services hit
Ambulances services have been getting calls around the clock and have been making trips around the city. The officials said they have been receiving most of their calls from areas around T. Nagar, Velachery, Tambaram and Saidapet.
“Since morning we have received about 40 calls today and unfortunately we are only able to tend to about half of those calls. We have no issues going long distances but when the water levels are too high the vehicle is likely to break down,” said Ramesh of R.K Ambulance services. Ramesh also said there have been calls from people to transport dead bodies to mortuaries or hospitals and said that it such situation they cannot afford to get stuck in the rain or traffic.
Reservoirs nearing full capacity
Incessant rainfall has ensured that the city’s four primary reservoirs are nearing full capacity and amid fears of breach, officials were contemplating increasing water outflow late on Monday evening.
But, the city’s drinking water supply has been secured till at least the next monsoon as record inflows in Poondi, Red Hills, Cholavaram and Chembarambakkam reservoirs have have added more than 2,000 million cubic feet of water in just 24 hours.
All the reservoirs are nearly 85 per cent full and their combined storage stood at 7,023 mcft on Monday, which when compared to the combined storage on the same day last year, at 2,973 mcft, tells the entire story.
The Chembrambakkam lake got 9,717 cusecs of water as inflow while Red Hills got 5,938 cusecs on Monday. Their their catchment areas received 282 mm of rainfall. The lakes storage levels stood at 2,703 mcft and 1,657 mcft respectively. The Poondi reservoir recorded 4,857 cusecs of inflow taking its storage level to 2,044 mcft and the Cholavaram storage level stood at 619 mcft.
Meanwhile, the Nungambakkam weather station recorded 25 cm of rainfall setting the second highest score in terms of maximum rainfall received in 24 hours. The record of 1976, when Chennai received 452.4 mm, still holds good.
Coming to other parts, Ponneri in Tiruvallur district has registered the highest rainfall with 37 cm, while Tambaram, Mahabalipuram, Chengalpattu, Thamaraipakkam and Puzhal received rainfall of over and above 30 cm.
However, there was some respite to the Chennaites on Monday with city receiving relatively less rainfall and the well-marked low pressure area moving away from North Chennai coast towards the Andhra. According to numerical models, there is another system brewing in bay which is likely to bring more rains, possibly next week.
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