A couple in Madikeri set an example by donating two acres of their land towards helping those left homeless after the recent Kodagu disaster.

The couple, from Yavakapadi, who own three acres of land offered two acres for the ones who lost their homes during the recent floods. A video of the couple offering land went viral on social media.

Meanwhile, Poonacha and his wife do not have any children of their own and hence they have offered to take care of the children who have been orphaned in the recent catastrophe.

(Ians)

 Celebrities from the Indian film and music industries, including names like Rana Daggubati, Abhishek Bachchan, Nandita Das, Javed Akhtar and Hariharan, came together to support a telethon to raise funds for flood-hit Kerala.

Some of the other names who lent support to the telethon as a part of the NDTV-Tata Sky campaign #IndiaForKerala, included Raveena Tandon, Manisha Koirala, Resul Pookutty, Jimmy Shergill, Aanand L. Rai, Sonakshi Sinha, Mudassar Aziz, Shruti Haasan, Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, Amaan Ali Bangash and Ayaan Ali Bangash.

Singers Ankur Tewari, Shaan, Tochi Raina, Kanika Kapoor, Shilpa Rao, Purbayan Chatterjee, Jasbir Jassi and “Indian Idol” participants Nitin Kumar and Renu Nagar also sang and played during the six-hour telethon aimed at helping in rebuilding flooded villages and damaged and destroyed homes in Kerala, read a statement.

The telethon on Sunday had specific goals – to enable the rebuilding of villages in the three worst-affected districts and provide immediate assistance in terms of rehabilitation and food kits to people in the worst affected areas. All donations received will be directed to NGO Plan India.

Also lending support were Union Ministers Nitin Gadkari and K.J. Alphons; Rajiv Kumar and Amitabh Kant from Niti Ayog; Chief Ministers Pinarayi Vijayan, Conrad Sangma, N Biren Singh, Raman Singh, Naveen Patnaik and Devendra Fadnavis; as well as Thomas Isaac, Khushbu Sundar, Priya Dutt, Aditya Thackeray and Shashi Tharoor.

(IANS)

Flood-hit Kodagu district in Karnataka is limping back to normalcy as hundreds of people returned to their homes from relief camps, said an official on Sunday.

“Kodagu is getting back to normalcy. A total of 1,800 people returned from the relief camps to their villages wherever the houses are intact,” state Relief Commissioner Gangaram Baderia said in a statement.

The 51 temporary relief shelters, which housed 5,041 people across the district last week, have come down to 32, with 3,227 people residing in them.

The relief camps were set up a week ago in the district after torrential rains caused floods and landslips in the hilly district during the southwest monsoon from August 14-22.

The district’s Deputy Commissioner P. Sreevidya had asked to relieve all the rescue teams, including the Army, Air Force, Navy and other agencies while keeping one team of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), the statement added.

The torrential rains have claimed 17 lives while damaging more than 2,200 homes and public buildings.

The Karnataka government has sought Rs 2,000 crore interim relief to rehabilitate the flood affected in the district, about 270 km from state capital Bengaluru.

The district received moderate to heavy rainfall on Sunday, and is likely to continue to see moderate to heavy rains for the next two days, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.

(IANS)

After a few spells of moderate rain and thundershowers, Met officials on Saturday predicted heavy rainfall in almost nine districts of Gangetic West Bengal in the next two days and advised fishermen not to venture into the sea.

“Heavy rainfall (711 cm) is likely to occur at one or two places over South 24 Parganas, East and West Midnapore, West Bardhaman, Jhargram, Howrah, Hooghly, Bankura and Purulia district of Gangetic West Bengal,” Met officials said.

According to the Regional Meteorological Centre (RMC), under the influence of the cyclonic circulation over the northern parts of Gangetic West Bengal and neighbouring areas, a low-pressure area has formed over the coastal areas of West Bengal and north Odisha and adjoining northwest Bay of Bengal.

“Associated cyclonic circulation extends up to 5.8 km above mean sea level, tilting southwards with height. The system is likely to become more marked during the next 24 hours,” they said.

The relative humidity in the affected areas is from 87-91 per cent. The rainfall recorded in the last 24 hours is almost 5 mm.

The maximum temperature was around 34.4 degrees Celsius, a notch above the average and the minimum was 27.6 degrees Celsius, a degree above the average.

Due to the low pressure in the coastal areas, fishermen in the deep sea have been advised to return and others have been advised not to venture into the sea from August 26-27.

(IANS)

As rescue operations in Kerala on Monday entered its final stages, the biggest challenge before the authorities in the flood aftermath turned into managing the over 5,500 relief camps housing more than 7,00,000 people across the state.

The weather looked promising with no major rainfall expected in the state. Many people though continued to wait for rescue to arrive in several parts of Ernakulam district and interior Chengannur in Alappuzha district.

The death toll stands at 370, from May 29 when Kerala got the first of the monsoon rains, with the bulk of the fatalities being reported after August 9.

A tragedy of unprecedented proportion gripped the state after sluice gates of several rain-filled dams had to be opened.

On Monday, helicopters started their rescue operations in places where people still remained marooned. Several of the other helicopters transported food and relief materials from here.

Chengannur legislator Saji Cherian said: “We have despatched 70 rescue teams in boats who have reached 60 places where people are still trapped. We are confident that by Monday evening all will be rescued.”

In Ernakulam, Paravur legislator V.D. Sateeshan said while a huge majority of those stranded have been rescued, at least 1,500 are still trapped in very remote areas. Accessibility is the biggest problem.

“We are sending individual rescue teams to these places and hopefully we will be able to save them,” said Sateeshan.

Some people trapped in water-logged Kuttanadu in Alappuzha had refused to board the rescue boats. A lot of persuasion was required from the police teams to bring them to relief camps.

Congress leader P.C. Vishnunath told the media in Chengannur: “Bio-toilets have to be set up. In many camps they are overflowing. Engaging in basic needs has become a problem.”

Waters at the Cochin International Airport also receded on Monday. The airport was shut since August 15, after water entered the operational area. Authorities have started the cleaning up process.

On Monday, small aircrafts started operating from the Cochin Naval Airbase.

Rains in the catchment areas of the big dams in Idukki district have also subsided. The outflow of water from both the Mullaperiyar and Idukki dams have been reduced.

As a result, the water flow into the Periyar and its tributaries that flow through Ernakulam and Thrissur has come down considerably.

The railways started operations in the Kottayam sector and also to other sectors to Shornur.

The Kerala State Road Transport Corporation also began operations from many depots and it was expected to be fully functional in a day or two.

Kerala faced the heaviest rains and consequent floods and destruction since 1924, and the state government estimates the loss to be around Rs 19,500 crore.

Traffic on the Chandigarh-Manali national highway has been blocked following a massive landslide along the Beas river in Himachal Pradesh, police said on Saturday.

However, there were no reports of any casualties.

Nearly 100 metres of the national highway was badly damaged in the landslide that occurred near Aut in Mandi district on Friday night.

Hundreds of vehicles remained stranded on both sides of the affected area.

District authorities claimed that traffic was partially restored for small vehicles through diversions on alternate roads.

“JCB machines are trying to clear the debris and likely to restored by afternoon,” said a district official.

The National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) and district authorities have deployed equipment to remove the debris.

The strategic Jammu-Srinagar highway was closed for traffic on Saturday due to landslides, police said.

The landslides hit the highway in Ramsu area of Ramban district.

“Clearing operations have begun. Scores of vehicles are currently stranded,” officials said.

The highway is the lifeline of supplies for the landlocked Kashmir Valley.

This is also the route taken by the Amarnath pilgrims. The Yatris were not allowed to move towards the Valley on Saturday due to the highway’s closure.

Heartbroken on finding his class twelve certificates destroyed in the devastation caused by the deadly monsoon in Kerala, a 19-year-old boy, committed suicide, police said on Monday.

With his house fully waterlogged in the downpour, the boy, Kailash, and his parents, hailing from Karanthur in Kozhikode district, had moved to a relief camp three days ago.

Kailash had got admission for a course in the Industrial Training Institute (ITI) and had purchased new clothes and set apart some money for higher studies, they said. As the rains abated for a while, he returned home on Sunday to take a look at the house and was shocked to find his plus two certificates soaked in water and in tatters.

A Police officer attached to the Kunnamanagalam station said the boy’s death came to light later in the day on Sunday when his parents came to clean up the house as the water receded. They were shocked to see him hanging, police said.

His shattered father, a labourer, had pinned all his hopes on his son as all their belongings had been mostly destroyed in the rains.

In the worst affected Chengannur in Alappuzha district, a woman was wailing saying she had lost her Aadhar card, Ration card and all ID proofs. “All my belongings, my Aadhar and Ration cards and ID proofs are all gone. Only I am alive. My relatives do not even know I exist,” she mourned.

Heavy rains in Kerala have so far claimed 210 lives and forced over 7.14 lakh people to take shelter in relief camps in the state.

Most of the states in India have not conducted comprehensive state specific assessment of hazards, vulnerabilities and exposures of the changing dynamics and complexities of disasters,” highlights a risk assessment study undertaken by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs across 640 districts in the country.

The level of resilience to disaster is low and there is a need of ‘considerable improvement’, the report adds.

Even though India has one of the most advanced satellites and early warning systems which can forecast imminent hazards and bring down casualties, government’s emphasis on disaster risk reduction (DRR) and capacity building for disaster resilience seems to have remained on paper.

In the next ten years as many as 16,000 people may lose their lives to floods and property damage of Rs 47,000 crore is estimated by calculating the average loss of lives and property due to floods as predicted by National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA). Yet, NDMA is currently restricted to issuing guidelines and organizing seminars and meetings when emergency arises.

The study by Union Ministry of Home Affairs created a National Resilience Index based on performance of states and union territories on DRR measures adopted such as risk assessment, risk prevention and mitigation, disaster relief and rehabilitation. Except Himachal Pradesh, none of the states have carried out comprehensive risk assessment or engaged any professional agency to map hazards, vulnerabilities and exposures, the report stated.

“Around 10 years back, Gujarat had done comprehensive risk assessment but since then it has neither updated it not made it available in public domain for use of stakeholders,” the report added.

The Karnataka government on Monday announced Rs 2.2 crore interim relief for 5,800 people rescued from flood-hit Kodagu district.

“The government has initiated steps to pay interim relief of Rs 3,800 per family to 5,800 distressed people in the relief camps,” Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy told reporters here.

The heavy rains, leading to flooding and landslips, have claimed 12 lives in the district while 4,320 have been rescued, he said.

As the intensity of rains reduced on Monday, the rescue operations reached the last phase, officials said.

“About 50,000 affected people will also be given groceries and essential commodities through mobile units,” Kumaraswamy added.

A total of 5,618 people have been sheltered at 41 relief camps in Kodagu and 340 in three camps in Dakshina Kannada district, which has also received heavy rains.

Cut off by landslides and damaged roads, the coffee-growing Kodagu district, located in the Western Ghats, has been the worst affected in the state due to southwest monsoon since June first week.

As per government’s estimates, 845 houses, 123 km of roads, 58 bridges, 278 state-owned buildings and 3,800 electric poles have been destroyed.

The district administration has been directed to distribute new uniform and text books to the students.

Schools have been asked to complete the syllabus through special classes to compensate for the loss of 20 days in the last three months due to rains.

Around 1,725 personnel from the Indian Army, Navy, Indian Air Force (IAF), National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), state police, National Cadet Corps (NCC), Home Guards and district officials were involved in the relief operations.

On a request from the state government, the IAF training command in Bengaluru rushed on August 17 one Mi-17 helicopter for rescue and relief operations.

“The chopper carried five sorties each on August 18, 19 to rescue the stranded people despite bad weather. After two attempts on August 18, the chopper reached the landslide affected area Mukkodlu and dropped relief material for the stranded people,” the Air Force said.

Union Minister Ananth Kumar rushed from Bengaluru a truck-load of generic medicines (Jan Aushadi) for diabetes care, blood pressure control, cardiac and kidney ailments to the affected people in the district, about 270 km from the state capital.

Deputy Chief Minister G. Parameshwara also rushed four trucks of essential commodities and food items to the people in relief camps in Kodagu.

The Bengaluru civic corporation (BBMP) has donated Rs 2 crore to the flood victims in Kodagu and Rs 1 crore to people in Kerala, Parameshwara told reporters.

He said the entire police force would donate a day’s salary to the flood victims in Kodagu and Kerala.

“We are also arranging to rush pre-fabricated housing panels for the homeless in Kodagu district to shelter them,” Parameshwara said.

In addition, the state-run Karnataka State Road Transport Corp (KSRTC) has donated Rs 11.8 crore to the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund.