Heavy rain in TN claims 55 lives

Normal life affected in the state; Rain to continue for the next few days

Heavy rains in the state has claimed nearly 55 lives and affected normal life in Tamil Nadu in the last five days. All the main water reservoirs are full and many of them have reached its capacity. Met Department said the rain will continue for another three days.

Reports stated that around 55 people have lost their lives in rain-related incidents. The government had on Thursday put the toll in such incidents at 48, including 27 in Cuddalore district alone.

While schools and colleges were remained closed for the third day, many of the offices have given an option for employees to work from home.

The state which faced water crisis till two weeks back as water level in most of the important dams, reservoirs and ground water was going down, is now witnessing over capacity.

Mettur dam's inflow continues to be on the rise and stood at 20,951 cusecs while the outflow was 500 cusecs. Officials are hopeful that the current storage would be sufficient for delta cultivation till January 2016.

After three years, the Andiappanur Dam near Tirupattur has received surplus water following incessant rain in the last three days. This has come as the much-needed source of water for irrigation as it will benefit about 5,025 acres of agricultural lands in the nearby villages.

Madurantakam and Sathanur reservoirs have been receiving plenty of inflow of water on Wednesday and they are overflowing.

The Krishnagiri Dam continues to remain full and the entire inflow is being discharged into the River Thenpennaiyar. The water level in the dam stood at 51.30 feet against its full level of 52 feet on Thursday evening.

The storage levels in the four key reservoirs that cater to Chennai went up six-fold since the start of the ongoing spell of rain to touch 3,236 million cubic feet. Although this is much lesser than the total maximum storage capacity of 11,057(mcft), the current level is nearly 20 per cent higher than the same time last year.

The main reservoirs were almost dry for nearly two years, if the current spell of rain continues in the catchment areas for the next three days the levels would be more than half the total capacity of the reservoirs.

Met department said more rains can be expected in Chennai and in coastal areas till the weekend. A new trough of low pressure in the Bay of Bengal could also lead to rain in some coastal areas.

Reports quoting US Climate Prediction Centre said heavy rainfall is expected in Tamil Nadu coast with Chennai through the weekend.