A health ministry team will visit Tamil Nadu to assess the situation in the wake of floods caused by heavy rains with a massive cleaning operation to be undertaken in Chennai to prevent epidemics and spread of diseases, an official statement said on Saturday.According to a home ministry release, the National Crisis Management Committee (NCMC) met here under Cabinet Secretary Pradeep Kumar Sinha and reviewed the flood situation in Tamil Nadu, noting Chennai did not experience heavy rainfall since Friday and flood waters were receding.The National Disaster Response Force and armed forces have rescued more than 28,000 people and the personnel were now more engaged in relief work as need for rescue efforts has come down, said the statement, adding road connectivity has been restored, city bus service is functioning and power supply has been restored to more than 90 percent of the city."Railways continue to operate special intra-city and outstation services. Normal service is expected to begin from Monday. Restoration of Chennai airport is on the way and will be completed in a day or two," the release said.It said that operation of the civilian flights from the Naval air base in Arakonam was continuing.
The cabinet secretary has directed that necessary steps should be taken to restore telecom services at the earliest, while the petroleum ministry was taking steps for availability of petroleum products.The release said that seven truck loads of dry ready-to-eat food provided by the food processing industries ministry had reached Chennai and 20 trucks were on the way.The railways have supplied two lakh bottles of drinking water and two lakh more such bottles will be provided. Three naval ships carrying relief materials have also reached Tamil Nadu."Tamil Nadu chief secretary informed that a massive cleaning operation is being undertaken to prevent epidemics and spread of diseases. The ministry of health and family welfare will send a high level team to assess the situation in Tamil Nadu and to provide help," the release said.The meeting decided that post-flood dos and don'ts prepared by National Disaster Management Authority should be widely publicized to educate people.