JOIN USHeavy rains across Tamil Nadu, schools shut in nine districts
Heavy rains pounded most parts of Tamil Nadu on Tuesday night with the administration in nine districts, including Chennai, closing down schools as a precautionary measure.
Northern districts like Chennai, Kanchipuram, Chengalpattu, and Villupuram, Tiruvarur and Mayiladuthurai in the Cauvery Delta region, and others in southern Tamil Nadu received heavy rainfall on Monday and Tuesday.
The MeT department has forecast that the rains would continue till November 3 as the North-east Monsoon (NEM) is in full swing. NEM is the lifeline of Tamil Nadu as the state receives maximum rainfall between October and January.
As rains continued to pound several parts of the state, administrations in nine districts – Chennai, Kanchipuram, Chengalpattu, Villupuram, Tiruvannamalai, Ariyalur, Perambalur, Cuddalore, and Mayiladuthurai – announced shutting down of schools which reopened for classes 1 to 8 only on Monday.
Chennai city has been receiving a good amount of rainfall for the past few days, even as reservoirs that supply drinking water to its residents are fast filling up. A good monsoon last year ensured that the city did not go dry this summer as it went in 2019 when Chennaiites faces the worst water crisis in recent memory.
In Chennai, a 34-year-old police woman lost her life when a tree fell on her at the Secretariat, the seat of power of the Tamil Nadu government. Chief Minister M K Stalin condoled her death and announced a solatium of Rs 25 lakh to her family.
The MeT has forecast heavy rain in the Cauvery Delta region, Cuddalore, Pudukkottai, Ramanathapuram, Madurai and Kanyakumari districts in Tamil Nadu and in Puducherry and Karaikal, while thunderstorm with light to moderate rain is also likely to occur at most places over interior Tamil Nadu on Tuesday.
MeT said Marakkanam in Villupuram district recorded 20 cm of rainfall in the past 24 hours ending at 8.30 am on Tuesday. The Stanley Reservoir in Mettur was fast filling up due to the release of excess water from dams in Karnataka where heavy rains are experienced in the catchment areas of River Cauvery.
The water level at the dam was 111.68 feet as against the Full Reservoir Level (FRL) of 120 feet while the water storage stood at 80 tmcft. The inflow into the reservoir was 10,858 cusecs.