Chennai: The sudden opening of the skies on Monday when everyone thought that Cyclone Mandous was done with took many people by surprise, besides causing some confusion among officials in declaring holiday for schools in Chengalpattu district and making students of a private school in Chennai stand out in the pouring rain for turning up late.
Though the rains returned to the districts of Chennai, Chengalpattu, Kanchipuram and Thiruvallur, with dark clouds hanging over the skies, the officials announced holiday for schools only in Kanchipuram and Thiruvallur districts, forcing parents in the other districts to make their children get ready to go to school in a hurry.
Soon the rains started and the students of a private school at Chitlapakkam in Chennai, who were made to stand outside the gates as a punishment for coming late, got drenched, enraging the parents who barged into the premises in anger and confronted the management for being insensitive to the students’ problems.
Since the parents were involved in a long drawn argument with the management, police had to intervene and urge the management to let the students in. Some parents by that time had already taken their wards away.
Meanwhile, the authorities had trouble evacuating people living on the banks of the Vegavathi River that flows through Kanchipuram, feeding its lakes and ponds. Since the river that originates at Kaveripakkam Big Lake area in Ranipet district and joins River Palar at Thirumukkudal was in spate after heavy rains lashed the region for a few days, the people were asked to move to relief camps.
But the people refused to shift their homes as they did not want to leave their pets and other animals back. So the authorities made arrangements for taking their cattle along with them. They even had to carry bed-ridden old persons to the relief camps as the people moved out reluctantly.
Water from River Vegavathi had entered many habitations in the heart of Kanchipuram as it started overflowing due to the heavy rains and many other rivers flowing into it too getting heavy inflows.
The Water Resources Department of the Public Works Department said that of the total 1020 tanks in the districts of Chennai, Kanchipuram, Chengalpattu, Thiruvannamalai and Tiruvallur, 516 of them were full, storage level in 343 of them had touched the 76 percent to 99 per cent mark, 120 of them were filled between 51 per cent and 75 per cent and 41 of them between 26 per cent to 50 per cent.
District Collectors of Chengalpattu and Kanchipuram districts have also announced a holiday for schools on Tuesday, December 13, as more rains are forecast.
