Chennai floods: People rescue from their waterlogged houses during heavy rains in the city. (Source: PTI)

Chennai city and suburbs on Friday started picking up crumbs of life with flood waters receding in several areas but lakhs of people continued to suffer from lack of supply of essentials including water, power, milk and food items.

Tragedy stuck a noted private hospital when 18 patients were said to have lost their lives when a sudden black out on Wednesday caused snapping of oxygen supply in the ICU.

However, Tamil Nadu Health Secretary Radhakrishnan had a word of caution saying all the deaths could be due to ventilator failure or lack of oxygen supply as deaths have occurred over a period of three days. The cause of deaths was being probed.

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