Heavy rain lashes Chennai city, suburbs

Chennai, Oct 19: After experiencing a virtual second summer, the people of this teeming megapolis woke up to pleasant weather conditions as heavy rains lashed the city and its suburbs since early today.

The rain, which was heavy at times, started around 0100 hrs and had been pouring incessantly since then.

The Weather Office, which had predicted onset of North East Monsoon over Tamil Nadu as the South West Monsoon had further withdrawn from the country, attributed the sudden showers to the formation of a trough of low pressure over the Bay.

Some of the schools had declared a holiday for lower and kindergarten classes due to the rains.

Several low-lying areas were inundated leading to traffic jams.

Office goers were put to great hardships and those travelling by two-wheelers bore the brunt, as the vehicles conked off midway.

Traffic moved at a snail's pace in the Doraisamy subway road, connecting the T Nagar and Ashok Nagar areas, the busy North Usman road, Pondy Bazaar and the water-stagnated G N Chetty road.

Even the small bylanes were flooded with knee deep water forcing the people to flush out the rain water.

With the Festival of Lights just one day away, the sudden showers, hampered the programmes of last minute Diwali shoppers.

The people of the city had been experiencing sweltering heat conditions till yesterday though the summer season ended by the last week of May.

UNI