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Tamil Nadu rains: Heavy rain wreaked havoc in four South Tamil districts – Thoothukudi, Tirunelveli, Tenkasi, and Kanyakumari since the past few days. The state government and the Centre have jointly mobilised a massive rescue and relief operation to help the affected people.
Speaking on the flood -like situation in the state, Thuthookudi MP and DMK leader Kanimozhi Karunanidhi has said that the weather department did not expect such sudden and unprecedented flooding, adding that the government also could not have done much to prevent it.
While speaking to news agency ANI, Karunanidhi said, “…The weather department did not expect this, we had been checking regularly. This happened suddenly and unprecedentedly… The government could not have done anything.”
Speaking on what led to the devastation, she added, “Every day, more than 1.5 lakh cusecs of water was being released and water from a lot of tanks breached. Everything together has caused this devastation…”
“Once we knew the rain was going to be bad, we tried to protect the places and take away people from the areas which might get affected… I really don’t understand how we could have because this is not a storm or a cyclone where we have a little bit of warning…”
She also added that residents refused to evacuate despite alerts, claiming water had never reached their area before.
She said, “…When the alerts started coming in and we went call people to safer places, they refused to come. They said even from their grandfather’s times water has never come here. They said go from here, nothing will happen. They just refused to believe… Everything including crops, houses, roads, and bridges has been washed away…”
Earlier on 19 November, Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary Shiv Das Meena had said that IMD forecast turned out to be ‘wrong’, He said, “The IMD had predicted isolated to heavy, very heavy to extremely rainfall may occur in one or two places. This is what the forecast said. But Kayalpattinam (a municipality in Tuticorin district) received 115 cm rainfall in two days.”
Unprecedented rains that battered south Tamil Nadu claimed 10 lives and brought the region to a standstill, leaving individuals, families, with trainload of people were stranded for days. Collaborative efforts from the Defence, national, and state disaster response forces took the lead in executing rescue and relief operations.
Continuous heavy rainfall in different parts of the state created a flood-like situation, throwing life out of gear in districts such as Thoothukudi. The district collector declared a holiday in all schools and colleges in Thoothukudi district on 22 December. The district received record-breaking rainfall in the past week causing severe flooding in the area.
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