Chennai Fire and Emergency Safety Guide

On the morning of Sunday 11 October 2026, a thatched home in Mogappair West caught fire and two LPG cylinders inside exploded one after the other; the girl asleep inside ran out after seeing smoke and no injuries were reported, as we cover in a case study. On 15 March 2026 a cooking gas cylinder blast at Navalur, near Chennai, killed a boy aged one and a half and a girl aged four, injured seven people and brought down three neighbouring houses.

A fire that began on the 18th floor of Newry Towers, a 20-storey apartment block at Padi, was reported on 1 December 2018. Firefighters from eight stations used hydraulic sky lifts to bring out at least 13 people, among them senior citizens and bed-ridden residents, and two were injured; preliminary inquiries pointed to a short circuit.

The city is very flat, with some areas below sea level, and in a heavy northeast monsoon the rivers, high tide and encroachments combine to flood it. In the 2015 floods many residential areas stood marooned for more than 10 days, and between 30 November and 1 December 2024 the rains of the Fengal cyclone inundated 342 locations.

On 4 December 2023 Chennai police counted five rain-related deaths, two of them by electrocution and one when a tree fell in Besant Nagar, and the airfield was shut until 9 am the next day. DT Next reported about 17 subways closed by waterlogging, and the Army helped rescue people at Mugalivakkam and Manapakkam.

At about 11.45 pm on 26 December 2023, pressure dropped in the undersea pipelines carrying ammonia to a fertiliser plant at Ennore, and residents fainted, had burning eyes and trouble breathing. The Health Minister said 42 people were hospitalised, the plant was shut temporarily and the pollution control board ordered the pipeline repaired.

On 1 February 2019 three Class 9 students from Tambaram drowned off Marina Beach, and police said there are no safe zones and people enter the sea despite warnings. On 11 July 2024 a 16-year-old was swept away by a wave at Kottivakkam beach and drowned.