Michaung impact persists, no sight of total recovery soon

Chennai: People are yet to recover from the mortal blow dealt by Cyclone Michaung to Chennai and its adjoining districts as it passed through on Monday bringing copious rains that flooded many localities, cut off electricity and roads, marooned people depriving many of them of food, milk and water for three days continuously, triggering yet another bout of public protests on Thursday.

Television and YouTube channels and social media networks beamed grim stories of human sufferings across the city, including the traditionally down market northern part and also in the upcoming IT and industrial hub in the south, besides the downtown areas.

Social media channels like X and Facebook were abound with SOS messages like ‘Pulianthope area need essential stuffs, just now spoke with my friend in Pulianthope, he said no one came to distribute the food, no one came to rescue, the water did not recede yet, no power, no signal, no drinking water, most women in need of sanitary napkins.’

Media channels spoke to people marooned in some localities or forced to leave their houses due to water logging and were looking for succor from the government and volunteers to drive home the point that the situation was grim in many places and how the rains have affected the livelihood of the poor and the underprivileged.

Videos showing agitated members of the public taking to task elected representatives who visited the protestors demanding to know when their problems would come to an end and where they were in the past three days also surfaced in the news channels and in social media.

Reports from many multi-storied apartments too revealed the agonies, worries and losses of the upper middle class, too. Some posts in social media even brought to light the fact that posh localities where the privileged and elite lived too were not spared by the floods that inundated their streets and compounds and conked out their generators.

Realizing the enormity of the task at hand in providing relief to the people and ensuring the return of normal, the government extended the holiday to schools and colleges in Chennai to Friday, too, acknowledging the non-completion of relief operations in most areas.

Visuals in television channels showed boats and tractors moving through the waterlogged streets in North Chennai, where localities Ezhil Nagar near Korukkupettai M G R Nagar and Annai Sathya Nagar were still going without electricity connections and drinking water and watching helplessly sewage mixing with the pipelines.

While most of the complaints across the city were on the political leaders and authorities not bothering to visit them or help the people find solutions to their problems, they pointed out the non-restoration of electricity and non-supply of essential articles.

In the thickly populated areas like R K Nagar and Tondiarpet, members of the public said that the interior streets were completely under water that at some spots were up to chest level and that people were finding it difficult to get milk and other food items for the last four days.

Some Valasaravakkam residents complained of power disruption for the fifth consecutive day and total roadblocks for the second day. Their appeals for power restoration had been turned down by the electricity board officials, who wanted the water to be drained out first.

Meanwhile, a rumour spread like wildfire that another cyclone was brewing in the seas and that it was headed towards Chennai to leave another trail of devastation sending panic waves across the communities that had not yet recovered from Michaung’s onslaught. However the rumour was dispelled by independent weather bloggers who clarified that the next storm brewing was in the Arabian Sea and that it would not touch Chennai.

However, many parts of Chennai limped back to normal with vehicles hitting the roads that were clear of water logging, establishments restarting business, offices opening for work and public transport, including air travel, resuming.