Sudden flooding forces Chennai suburb residents to shift

Despite the intensity of the rain ebbing in Tamil Nadu's capital city and its surrounding areas, residents of Sunambu Kolathur, a city suburb in Kanchipuram district, were surprised by the sudden flooding of their locality on Monday morning.

The flooding forced some people to shift to their relatives' places, a resident said.

"Till yesterday night, there was not much of water-logging and in fact the water level was receding. But today (Monday) morning to our shock we saw the water flowing into our locality," Jenson Mathew, an IT consultant, told IANS.

Echoing him was G. Harikrishan, working in an IT company and who lives on a ground floor apartment in that locality.

"I am in the process of shifting to my relatives' place today. Now the water-level is knee deep and increasing. If it rains, we will be sunk," said Harikrishnan.

Four districts in Tamil Nadu - Cuddalore, Chennai, Kanchipuram and Thiruvallur - were flooded due to rain in the last few weeks.

According to Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa, 169 people have died in rain related incidents and 400,000 have been displaced.