Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin urged officials to take necessary precautionary measures as the Regional Meteorological Centre has forecast heavy rains in the next two days.
Chairing a meeting with senior officials of the revenue, municipal administration departments as well as the police at the secretariat here, the chief minister told the officials to take coordinated measures to ensure the safety of human lives.
Yesterday’s well-marked low-pressure area over the southeast Bay of Bengal concentrated into a depression today and lay centered in the same region about 760 km of Puducherry, 780 km of Chennai, 960 km of Bapatla in Andhra Pradesh, and 940 km of Machilipatnam in Andhra Pradesh, the India Meteorological Department said. “It is likely to intensify into a deep depression by December 2 and further into a cyclonic storm on the following day,” the IMD said in a bulletin on Friday. Thereafter it would move northwestwards and cross south Andhra Pradesh and adjoining north Tamil Nadu coasts between Chennai and Machilipatnam around the evening of December 4, it said.
Heavy rain is likely to occur at isolated places over the coastal districts of Tamil Nadu.
Following the yellow alert (6-11 cm of rainfall expected) issued by the IMD, the Chief Minister held a review meeting with the district collectors and instructed them to take precautionary measures.
Issuing a set of guidelines on the preparedness and mitigation works for the Northeast Monsoon, Stalin said “I urge the officials to effectively tackle the situation arising out of the cyclonic storm while ensuring minimal inconvenience to the public.” They should take necessary precautions in a coordinated manner, he said, and added that the requirements of the districts concerned could be conveyed to the local ministers, chief secretary, or department heads. Revenue Minister K K S S R Ramachandran, Chief Secretary Shiv Das Meena, Additional Chief Secretary (Revenue) S K Prabhakar, Greater Chennai Corporation Commissioner J Radhakrishnan, Director General of Police Shankar Jiwal and other officials participated in the meeting.