Chennai begins to pick up pieces after worst flood in a century

Runway at Chennai airport partially opened after being shut for four days

Rescue and relief operations picked up pace in Chennai on Saturday as government deployed hundreds of extra soldiers and National Disaster Response Force personnel to the flood-affected region.

Nearly 400 people, including university students, were flown to Delhi and Hyderabad by defence aircraft. "A C-17 Globemaster carrying 172 people left from here at around 11:30am for Delhi. A TrueJet flight also took off carrying 70 people, who were flown to Hyderabad," said a naval official.

The runway at Chennai airport was partly opened after being shut for the past four days, officials said, aiding the relief effort in a disaster that has claimed more than 300 lives across the state, according to the official death toll. Commercial flights will resume operations from Sunday morning. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced ex-gratia relief of Rs 2 lakh each to families of those who died in the floods.

Bringing cheers to stranded passengers, Southern Railway announced resumption of most train services from Sunday. Local train services also resumed between Egmore and Tambaram.

Large parts of India's fourth largest city were inundated by up to eight feet of water after torrential rains on Dec. 1, leaving tens of thousands trapped on rooftops or upper floors without power or communications.

While the rains have paused, more than half of Chennai remains under water, raising the threat of disease and squalor in the flat, coastal city of six million.

"We are asking for more help from the army, the national disaster relief team," said Atulya Mishra, relief commissioner of Tamil Nadu. "It has been a monsoon unlike anything we have seen in history, we need all the help possible."

Ten columns of the army, about 1,000 soldiers in all, were being flown into the city to add to the nine columns already engaged in relief and rescue work, Mishra said. The NDRF would send 20 more teams in addition to the 28 already on the ground, making it the force's largest deployment to a flood disaster.

M Vijaykumar, a deputy director at the Tamil Nadu fire service, said many residents were refusing to leave even though the water level had dropped slightly. "Some have old parents, they don't want to take chance," she said, with many too scared to wade through floodwaters.

While the rain stopped on Saturday, residents battled scarcity of commodities and high prices. Communication services and train services were partially restored. State government has warned those trying to make money out of the natural calamity against hoarding of essential commodities. Even though supply of milk and vegetables improved, it failed to meet the demand. Mobile phone and internet services were getting restored in a staggered manner.

Similarly, electricity supply, which was withdrawn fearing electrocution, is being restored. According to Tamil Nadu government, as many as 350,000 people have been rescued and moved to safer places so far.

Meanwhile, a controversy broke out when residents and opposition parties accused the state government of politicising the relief efforts by putting up posters of Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa and her party, the AIADMK, throughout the city. Some of the relief material also carried image of the CM.

When asked, an AIADMK spokesperson said the party would take action against those who were allegedly forcing volunteers to paste pictures of Jayalalithaa on the relief material.