Chennai: Everything in Chennai is under water, except hope and the city’s intrinsic survival instinct. A break of 36 hours in the steady sheets of rain brought out the sun briefly and put faint smiles on the faces of those stranded in houses on roads made impassable by gushing floodwaters. People on terraces, their tired eyes lit up by hope, looked skyward for the helicopters that would drop them food packets.
The small respite also invested the hearts of rescue personnel and volunteers with new determination, allowing them to redouble their efforts. These men and women have been battling all odds to save people. “We know there is water till our chests if we go into that street. But we will go there and help the stranded,” said a NDRF member near flooded Kotturpuram, one of the poshest areas of the city. Such is the grit and spirit of the rescuers.
The marooned do their bit too. A woman rescued from a flooded apartment said she knew how to swim and thus reached the nearby wall to be picked up by a rescue boat.
Another youth on his way to deliver a can of water to his uncle’s family in flooded K.K. Nagar praised the volunteers who stood in knee-deep water holding a rope to which he clung in the swirling water.
He managed to deliver the water. There were many more like him, nameless Good Samaritans who have been chipping in with the life-sustaining food and drinking water. Chennai’s never-say-die attitude in the face of calamity is visible. The city will bounce back. Soon.
Though the torrential rains took a break and sun came out in brief spells, new areas of the city like Kodambakkam, Ashok Nagar and T. Nagar were flooded today after overnight discharge of 30,000 cusecs of water from Chembarambakkam, one of the key sources of drinking water for the city.
Adyar river that flows into the sea after traversing through several areas of the city has been in spate after surplussing of water from Chembarambakkam and other lakes on the outskirts.
