Heavy rain and storms hit southern India

Heavy rains and storms in southern India have flooded roads, snapped power and phone lines, and disrupted flights.

Heavy rains and storms in southern India have flooded roads, snapped power and phone lines, and disrupted flights.

The death toll due to the bad weather in southern India this month has passed 100 people.

Tamil Nadu state was the worst hit by the latest downpour as many areas in the capital, Chennai ,were inundated and cut off, while people and vehicles waded through waist-high water in some parts of the city, witnesses said.

Strong winds uprooted trees and snapped power and phone links in some parts of the city. "We seem to be passing from one disaster to another since the tsunami," state relief commissioner R. Santhanam said.

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Tamil Nadu took the brunt of the December's Indian Ocean tsunami on the Indian mainland.

Tamil Nadu and the neighbouring states of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh have struggled to cope with torrential rain this month. More than 100 people have been killed in the three states, mostly in house collapses or due to electrocution.

Weather officials predicted more rains in the region over the next two days as a severe depression over the Bay of Bengal moved close to the Andhra Pradesh coast.

A Chennai cyclone warning centre said the seas would get very rough and fishermen had been told not to venture out.