Sudden downpour surprises office goers in Chennai

Chennai: The sudden opening of the skies around 5 pm took office-goers, students and others out on business in Chennai by surprise as what started as a pleasant day with the sun reappearing, many of the roads relatively parched but for the shallow puddles along the kerbs and the inundated roads and localities showing promises of drying up soon, suddenly turned into a messy evening.

Unlike the past few days when the skies were overcast since day break and intermittent showers kept drenching the city and people, Thursday dawned on a better note, raising the hopes of the people who, anticipating a clear sky and sunny weather through the day, set out for work and other normal activities.

But all hopes were dashed when the downpour started at the close of office hours, at around 5 pm, accompanied by lightning and thunder. Soon the city was under a sea of water with most of the roads either fully inundated or partially flooded restricting the movement of vehicles, causing massive traffic snarls.

School and college students depending on public transport were also affected since the buses did not arrive on time at the bus stops due to the slow movement of road traffic. Pedestrians, too, found it difficult to navigate through the flooded roads as potholes, some of them of dangerous depths, lurked underneath the flooded surface.

The weather office, which never said that the rains were over, came up with the forecast that the inclement weather would continue in the northern districts for a few more days. Since heavy rains lashed most of the districts and the rainfall recorded were high in many places, it only looked that the entire State was up for a damp weather condition and possible inundation of roads and villages.

The rains brought copious inflows into the reservoirs, lakes, ponds and other water bodies, with most of them getting filled up rapidly, increasing the fears of the people living downstream of flooding in their localities in the event of the authorities opening them.

In Chennai, too, fear of floods gripped the people as the Chembarambakkam lake had already been opened and water was being let out of it. The opening of the other water bodies would increase the flow through the city’s major waterways like the Buckingham Canal, Adyar River, Cooum River and several nullahs crisscrossing the metropolis, raising possibilities of water entering residential and commercial areas.

Though the even cloudburst stopped after bringing heavy rains for 45 minutes, many places continued to reel under the impact of the North East monsoon’s fury as the work on the construction and repair of the storm water drains had been incomplete, leaving many of the open and the roads around them slushy, posing danger to pedestrians and motorists, particularly two- wheeler riders.

Even the work that was progressing expeditiously in clearing the water from the roads and localities, which earned accolades from many people during the day, including DMDK founder Vijayakant who tweeted his appreciation and gratitude to Chief Minister M K Stalin for quick action and for engaging giant pumps, was hit by sudden evening rains.

The State government that had promised clear dry roads during this year’s monsoon season found itself on the backfoot, changing its promise to ensure that everything was alright in next year’s rains and going about providing relief to the affected people.

The sunny weather in the morning, however, did not enthuse many people flying to destinations within the State as flights to places like Coimbatore and Madurai were cancelled due to shortage of passengers.

Long distance buses, too, did not find that many passengers and many vehicles were not operated as the highways were also flooded, making journeys unsafe and difficult.