Dark rain clouds that had been hovering all day burst into heavy showers on Thursday afternoon around 2 p.m., lashing several parts of the city and suburbs.
Unlike on Sunday, when it rained mostly in south Chennai, the showers on Thursday covered several areas of the city, much to the delight of residents.
In Kellys, excited children danced in the rain, while their parents emerged from their homes carrying vessels to fill.
However, the rains wreaked havoc for commuters, both on the road and in flights.
Two flights were diverted from Chennai to Bangalore. A Sri Lankan Airlines flight, due to land in Chennai around 3 p.m. and an Oman Airways flight from Muscat which was to land at 6 p.m., were sent to Bangalore because of the rain, airport sources said.
The spell, which lasted nearly two hours, also left several roads waterlogged in Anna Nagar, Kilpauk and Egmore and slowed traffic to a crawl, said C. Babu, a resident of Kilpauk, who had to travel to Egmore on Thursday afternoon.
Motorists found it difficult to negotiate several inundated stretches, including subways in Ganesapuram and Basin Bridge. Several battered roads, including those in Moolakadai, Mint and Vyasarpadi, had motorists struggling to avoid massive potholes.
Tempers ran high among those were trapped in a traffic snarl for over three hours on Grand Southern Trunk Road in Chromepet. V. Santhanam, a resident of Chromepet, said that almost every subway along GST Road was flooded every time it rained. “It has been like this for at least 10 years now. Nobody attends to the problem,” he said.
The Highways Department had constructed culverts across GST Road a couple of years ago to prevent water stagnation, but they have had little effect. A senior traffic police officer said that it took several hours for water to drain out through the culverts and reach Pallavaram Periya Eri.
S. Narasimhan of the CPI (M) said that as the two culverts were not at the same level, free flow of water was obstructed. “This has been a pressing issue for many years. A considerable amount of money was spent on the culverts, but they are not of much use,” he said.
R. Parameshwaran, a two-wheeler rider, said he had been stuck at the same spot between Chromepet and Tambaram Sanatorium several times now.
Power supply was disrupted in most areas in the suburbs in the evening.
