Heavy rainfall occurred in most parts of the State on Tuesday, with the downpour continuing round-the-clock in the hill districts of Wayanad and Idukki.
A low pressure system over northwest Bay of Bengal, which had set the monsoon on an active phase over Kerala also a couple of days ago by quickening the flow of moisture-laden westerly winds from the Arabian Sea across the State, strengthened into a ‘well marked low pressure system’ on Tuesday and lay centred over north Odissa and adjoining Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh.
Its strong influence over the weather in Kerala could last at least for a couple of days more. The Thiruvananthapuram Meteorology Centre on Tuesday predicted widespread rainfall for the State for two more days. The downpour could become ‘heavy to very heavy’ in some places.
Vaithiri in Wayanad received the heaviest rainfall recorded in the State on Tuesday (25 cm). Several other centres in Wayanad and Idukki received rainfall ranging between 7 cm and 15 cm on the gauge. Places in Alappuzha, Kottayam, Ernakulam, Thrissur, Palakkad, Malappuram, Kozhikode and Kannur districts too experienced heavy rainfall.
The rain and floods claimed 11 lives in the State on Tuesday, according to a control room opened in the State capital to monitor monsoon calamities. It said 14 houses were destroyed and 249 houses damaged in the rain. The flood situation was grim in the Kuttanad region, sprawling across Alappuzha and Pathanamthitta. More than 1,15,000 people were in 219 relief camps in various parts of the State. Of these, 162 relief camps were in Alappuzha alone.
