Depression Soon, Heavy showers likely Across Tamil Nadu
- IMD issues red alert for 20 districts of Tamil Nadu.
- State likely to witness extremely heavy rainfall as the depression makes landfall.
- State govt puts emergency forces on alert, activates telecom services alternatives.
Chennai: IMD has sounded a red alert for 20 districts across Tamilnadu including Chennai after a well-marked low-pressure area over the Bay of Bengal intensified into a depression. Predicting the movement of the low pressure area west-northwest, heavy to very rainfall over parts of the Tamil Nadu and neighbouring Puducherry and Karaikal are forecasted for in the next 36 hours. During the past 24 hours, Nagapattinam and Tirupoondi recorded an extremely heavy rains of 31 cm respectively.
Ahead of the expected fresh deluge, the State Government has declared local holidays on Nov 10th and 11th for nine districts -Chennai, Kancheepuram, Thiruvallur, Chengalpattu, Cuddalore, Nagapattinam, Thanjavur, Thiruvarur, and Mayiladuthurai. Furthermore, 434 ‘siren towers’ have been established to alert authorities to floods and other emergencies, and strategies with telecom networks to ensure seamless mobile connectivity by setting up 50 cellular mobile phone towers for use is being worked on.
Tamil Nadu Revenue and Disaster Management Minister KKS SR Ramachandran informs water being pumped out of low-lying areas after lull in rainfall on Tuesday. In Chennai, 46 boats, several JCBs and roughly 500 gaint pumps have been deployed to aid rescue operations and drain floodwaters.
As per the statistics recorded on Tuesday, 5 people have been reported to have succumbed to the incessant rains so far.Since the inception of rains this week, 169 relief centre are operational which have lodged evacuees from 216 of the 400 low lying areas of the state.
