The rains lashing Thanjavur district over the past few days have brought in more trouble than the residents in urban and rural areas could have bargained for. It rained on Tuesday too inundating residential areas that were hitherto safe. Farmers are a terrified lot with no sign of let-up in the downpour.
Sri Palaivananathar Temple at Thirupalathurai near Papanasam was marooned by rainwater with the prakaram and Sri Ambal Sannathi in knee deep water. The overflowing temple tank is forcing excess water to drain on to the highway.
Hundreds of acres where samba and thalady paddy have been raised are inundated. Fields in the Tiruvaiyaru taluk have been submerged for quite some time provoking the farmers to think of the impending losses.
Intermittent rain has been targeting Budalur taluk and flooding the Tirukkattupalli-Budalur highway. The PWD authorities at Grand Anicut were discharging around 9,000 cusecs of water into the Coleroon.
With the Cauvery carrying about 10,000 cusecs at Upper Anicut, it is expected that the authorities would divert that into the Coleroon.
Meanwhile, Tamaraiselvan (50), AIADMK worker at Peravoorani, was electrocuted when he tried to switch on the light. He was rushed to the Thanjavur Medical College Hospital where doctors pronounced him dead on arrival.
A differently abled person Kaliyamurthy (65) of Gudiyalam near Kumbakonam was swept away in the flash floods and his body was recovered from underneath a culvert of a channel. Walls of some houses in Kumbakonam, Veppathoor and other areas collapsed unable to bear the brunt of the rain.
Many residential areas in Thanjavur were marooned making it difficult for the residents to venture out since morning. Suburbs on the eastern side of the city where many new localities sprung up in the recent years are inundated heavily increasing the agony of the public and residents had to wade through ankle-deep water to reach their houses. Many low lying areas are sporting sheets of water even as the rain continued to batter the city.
“We have remained marooned since Sunday when a torrential rain drenched our city. We could not go out to procure rations and other essentials. Only today officials and elected representatives came to our rescue,” says T. Kavita holding her one-year-old baby girl Akshaya.
Collector N. Subbaiyan along with a team of officials rushed to Kalvirayanpettai in Thanjavur district and plugged a breach in the Konavari near the Kallaperumbu tank.
