Thousands evacuate as heavy rain strikes India
Print Edition
THE heaviest rainfall in over a century caused massive flooding across the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, driving thousands from their homes, shutting auto factories and paralyzing the airport in the state capital Chennai.
The national weather office predicted three more days of torrential downpours in the southern state of nearly 70 million people.
“There will be no respite,” Laxman Singh Rathore of the India Meteorological Department told reporters yesterday.
No deaths were reported in the latest floods, but since heavy rain set in on November 12 there have been 150 deaths in Tamil Nadu. More than 200 people were critically injured over the past 24 hours in Chennai, a senior home ministry official said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has blamed climate change for the deluge, injecting urgency into the debate at global climate talks in Paris and highlighting the vulnerability of tropical nations to extreme weather.
Physician Rupam Choudhury said he and a friend had to wade through neck-deep water to reach high ground from where an army truck brought him to his hospital in the heart of Chennai.
Dr A Ramachandran's Diabetes Hospital was running out of oxygen for patients and diesel for power generators, he said by telephone. Most mobile networks were down in the city and food supplies running low.
Chennai, India’s fourth most populous city, is a major auto manufacturing and IT outsourcing hub. Ford Motor, Daimler, Hyundai and Nissan told workers to stay at home, while United States-listed outsourcing firm Cognizant shut its 11 local offices.
Airlines suspended flights into Chennai’s flooded international airport, causing wider disruption to air travel.
“The biggest challenge is to find a way to clear the inundated airport and main roads,” said Anurag Gupta at the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) in New Delhi.
Passengers stranded at the airport said they did not know when they would be able to fly, or where to stay if they could not. “All of us here are getting agitated because none of the hotels nearby are vacant. Where do we go?” traveler Vinit Jain said.In a limited initial relief effort, four helicopters dropped food, water and medicines, while fishing boats commandeered by the military were collecting stranded residents. A major relief effort by 5,000 soldiers was promised within 24 hours.
“The entire state machinery has collapsed. Most officials are forced to sit at home. It’s a very frustrating situation,” said a home ministry official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Weather experts say the seasonal northeast monsoon was responsible for the flooding in the city of six million, but was amplified this year by El Nino.
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