The heaviest rainfall in over a century caused massive flooding across the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, driving thousands from their homes, shutting auto factories and paralysing the airport in the state capital Chennai. The national weather office predicted three more days of torrential downpours in the southern state of nearly 70 million people.
"There will be no respite," Laxman Singh Rathore of the India Meteorological Department told reporters on Wednesday. No deaths were reported in the latest floods, but since heavy rain set in on November 12 there have been 150 deaths in Tamil Nadu. More than 200 people were critically injured over the past 24 hours in Chennai, a senior home ministry official said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has blamed climate change for the deluge, injecting urgency into the debate at global climate talks in Paris and highlighting the vulnerability of tropical nations like India to extreme weather. Physician Rupam Choudhury said he and a friend had to wade through neck-deep water to reach high ground from where an army truck brought him to his hospital in the heart of Chennai.