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Commercial flights not to resume at Chennai airport today, rain continues
Chennai, Dec 5 (IBNS) Contrary to expectations, commercial flight operations in Chennai may take two more days to resume,, Minister of State for Aviation Mahesh Sharma has said.
Earlier, it was expected that flight operations would resume partially at the airport on Saturday.
Sharma said commercial flight services cannot be resumed at the airport as of now.
"The airport's basement is still inundated with water. We should give it two days. Once power supply is restored and water evacuation happens, we can restart commercial flight services," he said.
Seven flights were operated by Air India and some private airlines on Friday from the Rajali Naval air station in Arakkonam near Chennai to fly out stranded people. Operations at the Chennai airport were shut after a flooded runway forced the cancellation of all flights on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, train services will remain suspended till Saturday, officials have said. The Home Secretary will chair a meeting with top officials from the NDRF and the Railway, Power and Telecom ministries in Delhi to discuss the situation.
Many areas of the city are still waterlogged. Relief effort by the Army, national and state disaster response forces are still continuing.
It has been raining intermittently since Friday night. The Met department has predicted "light to moderate" rainfall till Sunday.
Home Minister Rajnath Singh had, on Thursday, said that there had been 269 deaths in Tamil Nadu since the heavy rain and flooding began last month. More than 10,000 people have been rescued so far by the Army and the National Disaster Response Force.
Schools, colleges and offices in Chennai have been forced to close and exams have been postponed. Telecom companies have offered free talk-time to their customers. Mobile phone services have been partially restored.
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