6 substations flooded in Chennai

Chennai: Several areas in south Chennai faced power outage following flood caused by heavy rain on Tuesday. Power supply has been cut off in the flooded areas as a precautionary measure to avoid electrocution said a senior Tangedco official.

The heavy rain has flooded six substations in Tangedco including Madambakkam, Thirumulaivakkam, Mudichur, Thillai Ganga Nagar and Perumbakkam. “The power supply will be restored in these substation only after receding of flood water,” the official said, adding that even in the last week’s rain, only three substations were switched off due to flooding.

Power supply was cut off due to flood in south Chennai and its suburbs including Nanganallur, Madipakkam, Velachery, Tambaram and Mudichur, the official said. North Chennai was comparatively not much affected by power outage, the official said, adding that power supply to few streets in some areas of northern part of the city were suspended due to water logging.

Senior official said that after the last week flooding, instructions were given to local engineers to take up works to increase the height of the pillar boxes in the low-lying areas. “Height of pillar boxes was increased in 334 locations across the city. In those areas, the power supply was not suspended,” the official said.

On the increasing incidents of electrocution due to snapping of overhead lines, the official said that special teams had been formed in all the circles of Tangedco to identify and replace old and weak conductors, damaged poles and clearing tree branches falling on the overhead lines. The special team headed by the additional divisional engineer would undertake the rectification work on the spot, the official said.  “Over 100 km of conductors has been replaced since last week in various parts of the city including Pallikaranai, Gerugambakkam, Kandachavadi, Madhavaram and Periyar Nagar,” said the official.

Metro extends operations due to flood 

Chennai metro rail limited (CMRL) has extended train services on the 10km elevated koyambedu-Alandur corridor by an hour in the evening to clear extra rush at its stations owing to the flood. CMRL managing director Pankaj Kumar Bansal told DC that the last train from Koyambedu will start at 10.40 pm and from Alandur at 11pm due to anticipated rush in stations. 

The service extension is sure to save many commuters trying to shuttle between Koyambedu and Alandur from the deluge considering that metro trains cover the 10km distance in the same 20 minutes, as they did earlier. Metro's patronage increased even during last week’s rains when places like 100-feet road ended up as no go zones due to water-logging.  A four car metro train with 1,200 passenger carrying capacity will displace 600 bikes and 300 cars at any given point in time. 

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