Chennai Airport to Start Partial Operations Today, Intermittent Rain Continues

Chennai:  Flight operations are expected to resume at the Chennai airport today, even as intermittent rain continues after a short dry spell. Many areas of the city, which is slowly limping back to normalcy after experiencing record rain, are still waterlogged.

Here are the 10 latest developments in this story:

1. Operations at the Chennai airport were shut after a flooded runway forced the cancellation of all flights on Tuesday. Seven flights were operated by Air India and some private airlines yesterday from the Rajali Naval air station in Arakkonam near Chennai. Train services will remain suspended till today, officials have said.
2. Heavy showers lashed the city once again on Friday and it has been raining intermittently since last night. The Met department has predicted "light to moderate" rainfall till Sunday.
3. Parts like Velachery, Munipakkam, Thoraipakkam, Tambaram, Sholinganallur are however still inundated. Relief effort by the Army, national and state disaster response forces are still continuing here. In areas where water has receded, huge queues can be seen at ATMs and petrol pumps.
4. About 80 per cent of power facilities have been restored, the Tamil Nadu government has claimed. It also says 65 per cent bus services have resumed.
5. Arranging safe drinking water still remains the biggest challenge. Prices of milk, vegetables and food items have skyrocketed because of short supply. Milk is being sold for Rs. 100 a litre in some places. A bottle of mineral water costing Rs. 20 is being sold for Rs. 150. Vegetables like tomato and beans are being sold for Rs. 80 to Rs. 90 a kg.
6. Earlier, the flood situation in the city had eased after water levels in the Adyar and Cooum rivers reduced following a sharp fall in water being released from Chembarapakkam, Pondi and Puzhal lakes.
7. More than 10,000 people have been rescued so far by the Army and the National Disaster Response Force. But many are still marooned.
8. On Friday, 45 bodies were brought to a government hospital; 14 were patients from a private hospital who died allegedly after ventilators stopped working. "The reason of deaths is unclear... investigation is underway," J Radhakrishnan, Tamil Nadu's Health Secretary, told news agency ANI. The other deaths were reportedly caused due to electrocution and other rain-related incidents.
9. Terming the situation in Chennai as "very alarming", Home Minister Rajnath Singh had, on Thursday, said that there had been 269 deaths in Tamil Nadu since the heavy rain and flooding began last month.
10. Schools, colleges and offices in Chennai have been forced to close and exams have been postponed. Telecom companies have offered free talk-time to their customers. Mobile phone services have been partially restored.

Emergency Toll Free Number: 1910, State Emergency: 1070, District Emergency: 1077, Electricity:1912, Fire & Rescue: 101, Ambulance: 108, Tree fall, waterlogging - 1913, Sewage overflow - 45674567, 22200335
Helpline Numbers: Tiruvottiyur : 09445190001, Manali: 09445190002; Madhavaram: 9445190003, Ambattur: 9445190007; Tondiarpet: 9445190004, Royapuram: 9445190005; Annanagar: 9445190008, Teynampet: 9445190009, Alandur: 9445190012, Adyar: 9445190013,Perungudi: 9445190014
Flood Control Room: 28593990, 044-28410577,9445869843/47