Operations at the Chennai airport were shut after a flooded runway forced the cancellation of all flights on Tuesday
Resumption of commercial flight operations at the Chennai airport may take two more days, Minister of State for Aviation Mahesh Sharma has said. Earlier, it was expected that flight operations would resume partially at the airport today.
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Minister Sharma said commercial flight services cannot be resumed at the airport as of now. "The airport's basement is still inundated with water. We should give it two days. Once power supply is restored and water evacuation happens, we can restart commercial flight services," he added.
Yesterday, seven flights were operated by Air India and some private airlines from the Rajali Naval air station in Arakkonam near Chennai to fly out stranded people. Operations at the Chennai airport were shut after a flooded runway forced the cancellation of all flights on Tuesday.
The Home Secretary will chair a meeting with top officials from the NDRF and the Railway, Power and Telecom ministries in Delhi today to discuss the situation.
Many areas of the city, which is slowly limping back to normalcy after experiencing record rain, are still waterlogged. Parts like Velachery, Muni Pakkam, Thuraipakkam, Tambaram, and Sholinganallur are still inundated. Relief effort by the Army, national and state disaster response forces are still continuing here.
The city has witnessed intermittent rain since last night. The Met department has predicted "light to moderate" rainfall till Sunday. In areas where water has receded, people are able to move out of their houses to procure essential commodities. Long queues can be seen at ATMs and petrol pumps.
The Tamil Nadu government claims that power has been restored in majority of areas. It also says 65 per cent bus services have resumed. Arranging safe drinking water still remains the biggest challenge for authorities. Prices of milk, vegetables and food items have also skyrocketed because of short supply. Milk is being sold for Rs. 100 a litre in some places.
Food 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.
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.
More than 10,000 people have been rescued so far by the Army and the National Disaster Response Force.
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 other deaths were reportedly caused due to electrocution and other rain-related incidents.
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