Low Pressure becomes well marked, likely to intensify into depression, red alert for Chennai & 5 dists

Chennai : The Low Pressure Area over the bay on Thursday lay centred as a well marked Low Pressure Area over
Southwest and adjoining Westcentral Bay of Bengal off North Tamil Nadu-South Andhra Pradesh coasts.

The system lay centred about 340 km south-east of Chennai and 300 km from Puducherry. It will reach the North Tamil Nadu coast later today.

It is very likely to intensify into a depression during the next 12 hours.

Met office sources said the intensity of the rainfall will be very heavy if the system intensified into a depression.

Under its influence heavy rains and extremely heavy rains in excess of 20 cms, is likely to occur in Chennai, Tiruvallur, Kanchipuram, Chengalpet, Cuddalore and Villupuram districts during the next 24 hours.

A red alert has been issued to these districts and a 20-member NDRF team have been rushed to Tiruvallur district as a preventive measure to undertake relief and restoration works.

The met office said heavy rain is also likely to occur in North interior Tamil Nadu during the same period.

Schools and colleges in several districts have declared a holiday for today in view of the heavy rains.

Meanwhile, incessant rains lashed Chennai city, suburbs and several southern districts and western regions since last evening.

The spells were heavy at times leading to water-logging in low lying areas in the city and suburbs.

Police sources said though it has been raining in all parts of Chennai, there was no impact on the traffic.

As the met office has forecast extremely heavy rains, the Greater Chennai Corporation officials have appealed to the people to keep enough stock of essentials like milk, curd, vegetables for the next two days and advised them not to venture out of their houses.