Cyclone Fengal remains stationery, heavy rains continue to lash Puducherry, Tamil Nadu

Chennai: After making landfall late Saturday night, Cyclone Fengal remained stationery for over six hours bucketing down extremely heavy rains in Puducherry and Villupuram district of Tamil Nadu on Sunday, leading to floods in several parts in the Union Territory’s capital.

Chennai, which bore the brunt of the cyclonic storm, with winds gusting up to 90 kmph before its landfall, is taking baby steps in limping back to normalcy on Sunday, with the city's airport resuming operations after being shut for over 12 hours on Saturday.

Puducherry received a whopping 46 cm rainfall between 8.30 am on Saturday to 5.30 am on Sunday - the highest in 20 years since the city recorded 21 cm rainfall in October 2004. Mailam in Villupuram district recorded the highest rainfall at 50 cm thanks to Cyclone Fengal, while Cuddalore - 20 km from Puducherry - received 17.90 cm of rainfall during the above-mentioned period.

Video footages from Puducherry showed cars floating and almost submerged in flood waters in several parts of the city, where hundreds of trees have been uprooted due to high intensity of the winds that lashed before, during, and after the landfall of the cyclonic storm. In neighbouring Cuddalore, rain water entered houses in several localities, confining people to their homes.

Motorists found it tough to drive on the Chennai-Tiruchirapalli national highway with heavy rains lashing the stretch from Tindivanam to Ulundurpet. The magnitude of the destruction left by the Cyclone is expected to be revealed only when rains recede, rescue personnel said.

NDRF teams rescued many elderly persons in Puducherry using boats and moved them to safety. Rescue and relief operations have been hit due to continuous pouring of rains in Puducherry and surrounding areas.

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Cyclone Fengal has been one of the toughest cyclones to predict in the past few years with MeT department changing its forecast from time to time due to the weather system playing truant.

“The Cyclonic storm remains stationery and hasn’t moved for the past three hours. It is expected to weaken as a deep depression in the next three hours,” S Balachandran, Director, Regional Meteorological Centre, Chennai, said.

Independent weather blogger Pradeep John said Cyclone Fengal was still in open seas and hasn’t crossed the coast which is likely to happen by Sunday evening. “Cyclone will stay there till Sunday evening. Chennai will get on and off rains and sudden short intense spells too,” John said.

Chennai Airport resumed operations at 1 am on Sunday, though flight disruptions continued till morning.

Lakhs of Chennaiites were confined to their homes for the whole of Saturday as many low-lying areas and densely populated localities like Velachery, Madipakkam, Pulianthope, Medavakkam, Tambaram, and Ashok Nagar came under water.

Seven subways were closed for traffic and heavy water stagnation was reported from many arterial roads, including Anna Salai, and GST Road that connects Chennai with Tiruchirapalli. Rains receded in most parts of Chennai by Saturday evening, though heavy winds continued to keep people indoors.

A 25-year-old migrant worker, Chandan from Uttar Pradesh, Sakthivel from Velachery, and Isaivanan from north Chennai died due to electrocution on Saturday, in three casualties due to the cyclone.

“We believe that the damages from this cyclone will be minimal when compared to the cyclones we faced in the last two years. We expect the intensity of rains also to come down by Saturday night,” Revenue Minister K K S S R Ramachandran said.

He also said about 4,904 people have been lodged in 143 relief camps across Tamil Nadu, while more than three lakh food packets have been distributed to rain-affected people in Chennai.

Chief Minister M K Stalin, who inspected the Control Room, said all precautionary measures have been put in place to handle the cyclone.