Tamil Nadu rain alert: Heavy rain lashes Puducherry, residents struggle

Heavy rain continues to batter in several isolated areas in Tamil nadu, bringing the residents to halt and major services disrupted due to incessant rain on Saturday.

Visuals from the city show incessant rainfall leading water-logging on roads.

Earlier, Several areas of Chennai recorded extremely heavy rainfall until 8:30 a.m. on Thursday. Kathivakkam and Manali registered 23 cm and 21 cm of rainfall, respectively, while Cholavaram recorded 30 cm, Red Hills 28 cm, and Avadi 25 cm.

The depression over the west-central and adjoining southwest Bay of Bengal moved west-northwest at a speed of 14 km per hour and crossed the north Tamil Nadu-south Andhra Pradesh coasts between Puducherry and Nellore, near latitude 13.5 N and longitude 80.2 E, at around 4:30 a.m. on Thursday.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin inspected rain-affected areas in Chennai's Kolathur Assembly Constituency and distributed relief materials on Thursday.

Stalin said, "The Tamil Nadu Government is ready to face any situation. Precautionary measures have been implemented across the state.

Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) leader TKS Elangovan noted that water had receded quickly, highlighting the steps taken by the state government over the past two years.

Elangovan remarked, "Naturally, if rain continues for 3-4 days, problems will arise. When Jayalalitha was Chief Minister, this problem occurred twice, including in 2015. What was done then? There were heavy floods, and most industrial areas were inundated. With heavy rainfall, issues are inevitable. We are laying pipelines, and while there was waterlogging for two days after the rain stopped last time, this time, the water receded quickly. This shows the effectiveness of our actions over the past two years."

He added that all DMK ministers were out on the streets to assess the flood situation and provide relief to the public.