Chennai airport to resume operations from today

Sees partial operations on Sunday; train & bus services restart in some areas, amid forecast of more rain

Chennai limped back to some normalcy on Sunday, with power supply and public transportation being restored in many parts and the airport partially resuming operations.

Round-the-clock operations of domestic and international flights would start from Monday, Airport Director Deepak Shastri said.

The meteorological department said the city and some coastal areas would get moderate to heavy rainfall on Sunday, due to a new low pressure trough in the Bay of Bengal. Intermittent rains lashed the city and its suburbs on Sunday.

The airport had handled three flights till Sunday afternoon after the runway and instrument landing systems were declared safe. An Air India flight to Port Blair took off with 150 passengers at 10.50 am. IndiGo resumed partial operations with one flight on the Bengaluru-Chennai-Mumbai-Delhi sector. The airline would operate more flights from Chennai on Monday to Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad. Air India operated a flight to Hyderabad and Delhi and Jet Airways operated a flight between Bengaluru and Chennai. "The schedule of other airlines are awaited," Shastri said. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation had allowed the airport to function from 6 am to 5.41 pm on Sunday on a trial basis. "Night operations will not be allowed on Sunday," Shastri said. DGCA and civil aviation ministry officials were expected to inspect the airport on Monday.

Defence forces have called off aerial sorties for rescue operations as water levels have started going down. "Since last evening all aerial rescue and relief operations have been called off. There are no further communications from either Tamil Nadu government or Centre to carry them out as the city is slowly returning to normalcy," a senior Indian Air Force officer said.

In the past few days, through a coordinated team of defence forces and the National Disaster Response Force, the IAF airlifted nearly 1,500 people to safety.

The Chennai Municipal Corporation launched a mass cleanliness drive for all its 200 wards. Some civic bodies from neighbouring districts have also been roped in.

"From today we have launched a mass sanitation drive to clean the city of the mess and the filth left behind by the receding water. It is a tall order but we are responding to it on a war footing," a senior Chennai Corporation official said. Bus services had restarted on Saturday, both within the city and to the neighbouring states of Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. All state governments have decided not to charge passengers. Services on the Beach-Tambaram suburban train line were restored. The Beach-Chenglepet service was also restored on Sunday. The trains operated slower than usual.

Indian Oil Corporation said 81 per cent of its outlets (127 of 156) were operational in the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority area.

Indian Oil is also trying to ensure adequate supply of domestic liquified petroleum gas cylinders. The Chenglepet and Ennore bottling plants are working special shifts on Sunday. Rain-affected areas have 83 LPG distributors; 45,186 cylinders have been delivered to customers in such areas.

The rain in Chennai has claimed over 325 lives over the past one month in the affected districts.