Cyclone Vardah Effects on Chennai

Last Updated on October 22, 2023

Cyclone Vardah Effects on Chennai :

Sometimes, calamities can go way beyond our predictions. One such event is the occurrence of Cyclone Vardah. Chennai was unaware, to put it rightly, unprepared for such an intense cyclone. The weather forecast department realized its strength only by Sunday afternoon when the skies got cloudy and windy. However, it was expected that Chennai would get a heavy by Monday afternoon and then cyclone would weaken. But things changed when the eye of the cyclone was over north Chennai completely, intensifying the situation.

When cyclone Vardah became furious after the landfall, Chennai experienced historic winds. The winds were clocking at the rate of 100 km/hr and rainfall was close to 160 mm in the morning itself. The entire landfall in south Chennai witnessed the highest with around 300 mm rainfall in Shollingallur – Katupakkam – Kancheepuram belt. Undoubtedly, cyclone Vardah made Chennai stand-still. The fury of cyclone was absolute carnage. Chennai was not used to this kind of high speed winds and the resultant damage was beyond imagination. Cyclone Vardah’s historic winds and massive deluge rains have created a fearful memory of cyclones for Chennaites.

However, the after-effects of the cyclone in Chennai are unraveling. Uprooted trees, hanging electricity poll wires, damaged compound walls, roads blockage, power cut, lack of everyday supplies, and fallen hoardings make Chennai a ripped up city. The clean-up of the city was in full force. The corporation officials cleared away the fallen trees and road blockages hindering the flow of traffic. However, most suburbs were cut off from main city, until Tuesday.

With dark clouds and disrupted power supply, Chennai had to face the aftermath of cyclone havoc. To top it all, the communication and internet was completely wrecked up. This affected banking transactions and PoS devices to remain unusable in many retail outlets. There was a temporary downtime in the entire nation’s internet as the cyclone has damaged the major internet connectivity lifeline in the Bay of Bengal. With the country moving towards digital economy, this internet connectivity collapse was unfortunate. Most of the institutions and corporate offices announced a holiday to let Chennai recover from the wreckage.

The encounter of Cyclone Vardah was way beyond catastrophic. If the previous year (December 2015) saw historic floods, cyclone Vardah is the toughest every cyclone in Chennai history.