Floods that have killed 210 people in southern India began to recede on Thursday, giving rescue teams a chance to evacuate thousands of residents stranded by the heaviest cloudburst in the city of Chennai in over a century.
Floods and incessant rainfall cut off more than 3 million people from basic services and hampered rescue efforts by the army, which has so far evacuated 18,000 people from rooftops and outlying villages.
City authorities were deploying bulldozers and bags of concrete to repair collapsed roads, while several bridges were under water as urban lakes in the low-lying coastal city of 6 million overflowed.