Tamil Nadu: Intense rain lashes Madurai, causes disruption in daily lives

After heavy downpour a day ago, several low-lying areas in Tamil Nadu's Sellur and surrounding regions of Madurai district witnessed waterlogging on Saturday. The continuous rainfall caused significant flooding, severely disrupting the daily life.

An unprecedented rainfall of 9.8 cm hit Madurai district bringing the daily lives to a halt. The downpour began last afternoon, but intensified dramatically after a few hours, continuing late into Friday night. Officials said that within just 15 minutes from 3 pm yesterday, 4.5 cm of rain was recorded.

"There were continuous rains in Madurai city for the past 25 days in October. The average rainfall is 200 millimetres whereas since yesterday we had 260 millimetres of rainfall. There was intense rainfall within a very short period due to which there was a lot of water that was coming into the city. But we are closely monitoring the situation. We are providing food drinking water and other medical aid to all the people. As of now, there are nine locations which are inundated," Madurai Commissioner Dinesh Kumar said.

Major roads including New Natham Road, and TPK Road were flooded while neighbourhood areas such as KK Nagar, Anna Nagar, Sellur, and Goripalayam, among others were also innundated.

Meanwhile, Madurai District Collector Sangeetha declared a holiday on Saturday for schools in Madurai East and Madurai North revenue divisions given the unprecedented rainfall.

Tamil Nadu is currently experiencing intense northeast monsoon rains, which have caused extensive damage in both Chennai and Madurai. Earlier, Chennai saw major waterlogging and flooding last week as well after an uninterrupted rainfall for an hour.

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) had issued a warning in Odisha and West Bengal for cyclone DANA. Odisha Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi on Friday said that the state was "safe" and no causalities have been reported due to their constant efforts to prepare for the cyclone.

Earlier, the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) started an awareness campaign to inform the citizens about cyclone DANA in Odisha's Mahakalpada and Kendrapara districts. The NDRF team went door-to-door with loudspeakers to make people aware of the storm.