CHENNAI: As soon as it started pouring in Chennai in the early hours of Monday, many areas plunged into darkness due to interruptions in power supply.

And electricity supply was restored only by noon in many places.

Social media was flooded with complaints about power cuts in the city and suburbs.

While rain brought relief to people from the sweltering heat, the problem of power cuts continued unabated.

Mandaveli, Nandanam, New Washermenpet, KK Nagar, Anna Nagar, Madipakkam, Porur, Velachery, Tambaram West, Anakaputhur, Madambakkam, Annanur and Sevvapet were some of the areas where power cuts lasted for around five hours.

"Thankfully, a holiday was declared for schools.

Otherwise, it would have been a big problem to get the kids ready," said Vaidyanathan of Annanur.Narayanan of Mylapore found it difficult to register complaints about power cuts through the Minnagam call centre.

"The numbers remained not reachable most of the time.

Even if it does, the executive who attends the call is clueless about the problem.

The authorities concerned should also keep the Minnagam executives informed to give information to the public about the problem in specific areas so that they can communicate how long it would take to resolve the problem," said Narayanan.A Tangedco official, when contacted, said that problems were reported in 43 feeders since Sunday night and that all of them were rectified before 11am on Monday.

"First rain of the season is always a problem as rain water seeps into weak insulators leading to power cut.

The time taken to replace the insulators leads to the delay in restoring supply," said the official.

At Koyambedu substation, a fault in the busbar and flashing of insulator in Ambattur SIPCOT substation led to the failure of about 25 feeders.

Tangedco section officials said that there were no major failures in the network and the problems reported were area specific and due to minor issues in the junction boxes and transformers.