Rescue helicopters were grounded on Friday by renewed rains that spread fear in the flood-struck Indian city of Chennai, while the death of 14 patients at a private hospital added to the official toll of 280 confirmed killed in the disaster.
Waters that had started to recede rose again after a new cloudburst that sent residents running for shelter under trees and in shopfronts. Parts of the flat, coastal city remained under up to 2.5 meters of water for a fourth day.
Many residents have spent days stranded on rooftops since more than 345mm of rain fell over 24 hours on December 1.
Military helicopters dropped food to residents stranded on rooftops and the defence ministry doubled to 4,000 the number of soldiers deployed to help the rescue effort.
Rescue teams urged people to leave inundated regions and hundreds thronged the streets in the morning seeking higher ground, or trying to rescue relatives. Only roofs in some villages remained visible. Where water had receded, masses of black mud and garbage piled up.
In one of the most shocking incidents, 14 patients in the intensive care unit of the MIOT International hospital died after floods took out generators running life-support systems, Prithvi Mohandas, a doctor at the hospital, told reporters.
Tamil Nadu’s health secretary confirmed the deaths but said the cause needed to be investigated.
Despite combined rescue efforts by the military and civilian emergency services, help had yet to reach many areas and city-dwellers grew impatient as it emerged that authorities had released water from brimming lakes without much warning.
The Tamil Nadu public works department said it did issue warnings, but the information apparently did not reach the public because of a breakdown in media and phone communications. The Chennai edition of The Hindu newspaper did not go to press on Thursday, apparently for the first time in 137 years.
“We are sending technical experts and engineers who will find a solution to flush out all the flood water. It has to be drained out soon, but we don’t know how,” said a home ministry official, who was not authorised to speak on the record and asked not to be identified.
The government restored some commercial flights to a naval air base near the city of six million, but the main airport remained closed and completely awash. Car factories that export around the world were also shut.