By IANS
Chennai : Nearly 20 people have died, crops have been destroyed and roads in towns have got submerged as the northeast monsoons swept through Tamil Nadu, officials said.
The downpour has destroyed many houses and forced the authorities to evacuate thousands to safer places. Around 10,000 people were evacuated in Cuddalore district alone.
Rains in Coimbatore last week triggered the collapse of a government housing building, killing 13 people. A child in Kumbakonam, a seven-month old baby in Villupuram and four kids in Thanjavur also died in separate incidents.
In Chennai, 11.8 cm of rainfall was recorded Sunday from a depression that lay 480 km south in the Bay of Bengal. Large parts of suburbs were submerged as were city centres like T Nagar and Mambalam.
Several subways were under water and landslides on the busy Grand Trunk Road highway led to huge traffic jams. Many suburbs went without electricity for 24 hours.
S.R. Ramanan, director of meteorological services, said more rain is expected in the next couple of days.
Strong winds of up to 60 km ph brought with it as much as 12 cm of rain in Usilampatti in Madurai district and its neighbouring areas, submerging over 100,000 acres of Samba crop.
According to Minister for Dairy Development M. Mathivannan, 36,000 hectares of crops have been submerged in Nagapattinam district and 3,000 people have been relocated.
The government has now identified many old buildings in Chennai that could give way during heavy rains.