Eighteen patients have died in an intensive care unit in the
southern Indian city of Chennai after heavy flooding caused disruptions
to generators running life-support systems, officials have said.
Health Secretar
y J Radhakrishnan said on
Friday that an inquiry will be conducted into the tragedy at the MIOT
International hospital, which took the official death toll in
flood-related incidents to 280.
The announcement came as rains eased on
Friday, raising hopes that rescue efforts could pick up in Chennai.
Parts of the flat, coastal city in the state
of Tamil Nadu remained under as much as 2.5m of water for a fourth day.
Many residents have spent days stranded on
rooftops since more than 345mm of rain fell over 24 hours on December 1.
Despite combined rescue efforts by the military and civilian
emergency services, help has yet to reach many areas. Residents were angered by
reports that authorities had released water from brimming lakes without much
warning.
"The authorities didn't give us adequate
information about water being released from a nearby lake. Before we could take
action my car had sunk and I had to move to the first floor of my
apartment," said V Raghunathan, 60, a manager at an interior design
company living in southern Chennai.
The Tamil Nadu public works department said it
did issue warnings, but the information apparently did not reach the public
because of a breakdown in media and phone communications. The Chennai edition
of The Hindu newspaper did not go to press on Thursday, apparently for the
first time in 137 years.
Facing criticism for its handling of the
crisis, senior Tamil Nadu officials defended the government at a press
conference at the state's water-logged headquarters on Friday evening.
They said authorities have so far evacuated
127,580 people. More than half of them from banks of rivers are now sheltered
in relief camps and are being treated for fever and infections to prevent an
epidemic.
Military helicopters dropped food to residents
stranded on rooftops and the defence ministry doubled to 4,000 the number of
soldiers deployed to help the rescue effort.
India's fourth-largest city, Chennai has
boomed in the 21st century as a centre for automobile factories and IT
outsourcing. But trash-filled drains and building on lake beds in the rush to
industrialisation and prosperity has made it more prone to flooding.
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