Chennai struggles to stay afloat as cyclone triggers heavy rains

Intense showers and strong winds battered Chennai on Monday as the approaching Cyclone Michaung wreaked havoc across the city, submerging nearly every neighbourhood, halting flight operations, marooning hundreds, destroying infrastructure and killing at least five people.

- Divya Chandrababu

As roads turned to rivers, state and central disaster response teams set out to rescue people on boats and rafts, even as the torrents swept away vehicles and uprooted dozens of trees across the coastal city. The gusts also snapped power lines, leaving Chennai without electricity for most of Monday.

The Tamil Nadu capital received 415mm of rain in less than 24 hours between 8.30pm on Sunday and 1.30pm on Monday, according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), a downpour that weather experts said was the most in Chennai since the brutal floods in December 2015, which left 250 people dead.

And even as Chennai struggled to stay afloat amid the unforgiving rain and households were plunged into darkness, more rain pummelled the city on Monday, with the IMD saying that the impact would gradually reduce.

"Today was the highest impact day for Tamil Nadu. The impact will gradually reduce now. The system is moving towards Andhra Pradesh now. There will be very strong winds and extremely heavy rain till tomorrow noon (in Andhra Pradesh," IMD director general M Mohapatra said.