Thiruvananthapuram | The Death toll in Kerala has reached up to 357 as floods and heavy rains in the southern state have displaced more than 3 lakh people.
Kerala is facing one of the worst floods in his history with the loss of 21,000 crores already been suffered by the state. Around 6,80,247 people have been forced to stay in relief camps due to constant rains and flood like situation in the state. Chief Minister P Vijayan has appealed to the citizens of Kerala to stay ‘united as one’ to tackle this difficult situation faced by the state.
The MET department has informed that the state could get a relief from rains in the next 24 hours. Similarly, the red alert warning has removed from the major districts in the state except for Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam and Kasaragod. The NDRF, Navy, Army, Coastguard and Air Force have launched a war-like rescue and relief operation in the state. As per media reports, around 42 navy, 16 army, 28 coast guard and 39 National Disaster Relief Force teams have been deployed in rescue operations. While 67 helicopters, 24 aircraft, 548 motorboats and thousands of rescue personnel from Navy, Army, Air Force, NDRF, Coast Guard are pressed into service to evacuate people from submerged areas to relief camps and distribute relief materials.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi also made an Aerial review of the situation in the flood-affected regions of Kerala along with CM P Vijayan. PM Modi has announced a relief package worth 500 crores for the state of Kerala. An ex-gratia of Rs. 2 lakh to the next kin of the deceased and Rs. 50,000 to those critically injured is also been announced by PM Modi.
The Prime Minister visited Kerala to review the situation arising due to the floods in the State.
After a review meeting, he made an aerial assessment of the damages caused due to floods in some of the affected areas. pic.twitter.com/DQtANpBUtI
— PMO India (@PMOIndia) August 18, 2018
The various State government has also offered help to the state of Kerala with Telangana government offering 25 crores. The relief amount of 20 crores and 15 crores have been offered by Maharashtra government and Uttar Pradesh government respectively. MLA’s and MP’s of various Political parties have donated their entire salary of 1 month towards the relief work in Kerala.
Meanwhile, the central government has sent 3,00,000 food packets, 6,00,000 MT of milk, 14,00,000 litres of drinking water, 150 portable water purification kits with the capacity of 1,00,000 litre each to the state of Kerala. The Central railway has also sent over 14 lakh litres of drinking water to the southern state by a special train from Pune.
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