A day after Cyclone Vardah slammed into Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, partial services on Chennai Suburban rail have resumed. After a night without electricity, Chennai will have to wait till this evening for supply to be restored. State Minister KC Veeramani said it may take longer in the suburbs.

It is only after electricity is completely restored that the suburban rail network to Tambaraam and Velachary will resume, it was announced.

Meanwhile the damage from Cyclone Vardha in Tamil Nadu is estimated to be at Rs 1000 crores.

Flights have resumed in Chennai.

The cyclone left 10 dead and forced thousands to flee their homes. The cyclone weakened after crossing land, but the Met office has forecast heavy rain in the next 12 hours and schools and colleges are closed for a second day today in Chennai and neighbouring districts.

Four people have died in Chennai, two each in Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur, one in Villupuram and one in Nagapattinam.


Tamil Nadu chief minister O Pannerselvam has announced compensation. In Andhra Pradesh,  two people have died in Chittoor district as heavy rain lashed the region, news agency IANS quoted officials as saying. Authorities in Nellore district declared holiday for educational institutions on Tuesday.

Pannerselvam said more than 10,000 people have been evacuated from near the sea. Over 9,000 people were moved to relief camps in Andhra Pradesh.

Andhra Pradesh CM N Chandrababu Naidu said he instructed the revenue, police and state disaster response force and other departments not to lower their guard against cyclone Vardah.

Chennai health minister C Vijay Baskar flagged off medical camp vehicles to all zones in Chennai from Omundurar multispeciality hospital. These vehicles will travel across the city and help people with fever and water-borne disease.

The city presented a scene of devastation with thousands of uprooted trees, broken billboards and snapped telephone and power cables besides low-lying areas reporting waterlogging. Flight operations resumed this morning in the storm-hit city which was limping back to normalcy. The storm, which was the most intense to have hit the Tamil Nadu capital in  two decades and left four persons dead, snapped communication lines, flattened homes, and threw into disarry rail, road and air traffic as it crossed the coast yesterday. However, with the rains having abated since morning, people came out on the streets and some of them queued up at roadside tea stalls.


Image: Sand artiste Sudarshan Patnaik lends support to citizens of cyclone-affected Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.