Chennai: The city took baby steps from a ghost town towards normalcy on Tuesday after having been pounded by Cyclone Vardah on Monday. Most of the city and neighbouring districts, which were in the eye of the storm, went without power for a second consecutive day. Normal communications were affected by patchy mobile services which allowed very limited connectivity.
Power was restored to “less problematic” areas in Chennai city and in bigger towns in Tiruvallur and Kancheepuram districts, but resumption of normal life may take a couple of days more as a majority of the roads and streets were a pathetic picture of havoc with branches of uprooted trees strewn across them while telephone and internet cables dangled from overhead and garbage was spread all over.
Chennai Corporation, with the help of NDRF and SDRF teams, began clearing uprooted trees in some areas and almost all major roads were opened for traffic, through they wore a generally deserted look with less vehicles plying on them.
Death toll rises to 17
Seventeen people were killed in six districts of Tamil Nadu in rain-related incidents linked to Cyclone Vardah that crossed the coast, as Chief Minister O .Panneerselvam held a meeting of top officials on Tuesday to speed up work to ensure return of normalcy in storm-hit regions.
