Flights to resume; more rain keeps Chennai on toes

Intermittent rain on Sunday and forecast of more downpour over the next two days have kept Chennai, its suburbs and coastal districts on their toes even as the flood-ravaged areas appeared to be limping back to normalcy.

All flight operations, domestic and international, besides train services are set to resume on Monday as water levels in the Adyar and Cooum rivers receded, enabling authorities to restore tracks on Sunday afternoon.

Five passenger flights of Air India took off from or landed at Chennai airport till 5 pm on Sunday. An Oman Air plane which was stranded here departed for Muscat with two crew. Four ferry flights also took off or landed, Airports Authority of India sources said.
 
Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathy Raju is likely to visit Chennai airport on Monday.
The Southern Railway also announced that 80 per cent trains, including the long-distance ones, will be operational from Monday morning from both Chennai Central and Egmore terminals.

Anantharaman, a top Southern Railway official, told reporters that the railway bridge in Saidapet over Adyar had made a lateral shift and engineers and staff worked day and night to fix it. The clearance certificate was issued at 1:45 pm on Sunday after which Chennai Beach-Chenglepet services were resumed. Total normalcy will be restored from Chennai in two or three days, he said.