Chennai Reels Under Torrential Rains; Andhra on High Alert as Cyclone Ditwah’s Remnants Persist
Relentless rain bands turn streets into rivers as Tamil Nadu, Andhra brace for more fury.
Chennai and northern Tamil Nadu remained completely at the mercy of nature on Monday as the dying remnants of Cyclone Ditwah refused to fade away, degenerating into a deep depression yet stubbornly hovering just 40–50 km off the coast and unleashing wave after wave of ferocious rain bands that have shown no sign of stopping.
Large parts of the state capital descended into absolute chaos with chest-deep waterlogging in Velachery, Madipakkam, Tambaram, Pallikaranai and Mudichur; traffic crawled to a standstill on major arteries including GST Road and OMR, while over 200 homes in Rameswaram’s Thangachimadam area stayed marooned for the second consecutive day, and rescue boats with NDRF teams were pressed on standby across southern Chennai as authorities feared a repeat of the 2021–23 flood nightmares.
Chief Minister MK Stalin personally chaired a high-level virtual review with all district collectors late into the evening, demanding real-time reports on crop losses across the Cauvery delta where thousands of hectares of ready-to-harvest paddy now lie submerged; meanwhile, Chennai Airport authorities cancelled ten flights on the sensitive Chennai–Port Blair sector and warned of further disruptions as runway visibility plummeted.
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Across the border, Andhra Pradesh sounded a red alert with disaster management chief Prakhar Jain confirming that coastal districts—especially Nellore and Tirupati—face heavy to very heavy rainfall accompanied by squally winds up to 60 kmph, while moderate to heavy spells are forecast for Prakasam, Bapatla, Guntur, Krishna, West Godavari and Konaseema until Tuesday night.
The India Meteorological Department tracked the system moving sluggishly northwards at a mere 5 kmph over the southwest Bay of Bengal, predicting it will weaken into a plain depression within the next 12 hours, but private forecasters and satellite imagery revealed persistent intense convection directly over Chennai, guaranteeing intermittent torrential downpours and thunderstorm activity across the north Tamil Nadu–south Andhra coast at least through Tuesday morning.
