After a bright sunny day, rain returned to lash the district on Saturday. Rain that started after midnight continued intermittently into the morning.
During the 24 hours ending at 8.30 a.m. on Saturday, Kochi received 17.4 mm rain as per the India Meteorological Department website. Thunder storm with rain was the weather forecast for Monday and Tuesday.
The sky remained cloudy even when rain stayed away for brief periods on Saturday morning. Occasional drizzles, however, gave way to consistent spell of rain by around 11.30 a.m. and continued well into the afternoon. Areas known for inundation were slowly but surely getting affected and could get worse if the rain were to continue unabated.
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City traffic police authorities said that traffic across the city had been affected by the continuing rain. Main junctions like Kacherippady, south and north junctions were among the most affected, they said.
Motorists who even otherwise had a horrible time with potholed roads were put to even more hardships as roads got flooded. “I hardly could get past the second gear while driving my car as I could not judge how bad the gutters were since they were filled with water, said Benny, an executive of a sanitary ware company in the city said about his torrid time on the road while on the way to office.
Residents of Mulavukad Island had a nightmare commuting through an almost non-existent road made even worse by flooding.
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Many people, including students, were, however, spared of the hardship as schools and many of the government offices remained closed as it was a second Saturday. Election officials and those at the taluk offices were not that lucky as they had to work despite being a holiday in view of the forthcoming local body elections.
Taluk offices across the district had not reported any contingencies till 1.30 p.m. though water logging was threatening to pose a problem. Two fishermen, residents of Pallippuram village, who had gone on deep sea fishing, were reported missing. Though they had gone two days back we received a complaint only today, Kochi taluk officials said.