Rahul Gandhi He also appealed the Congress workers to help those in need in flood-ravaged Kerala. Congress president Rahul Gandhi today appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to declare floods in Kerala as "a national disaster". The deadliest deluge in Kerala in close to a century has claimed 194 lives since August 8. Over 3.14 lakh people have been moved to relief camps. "Dear PM, please declare #Kerala floods a National Disaster without any delay. The lives, livelihood and future of millions of our people is at stake," Mr Gandhi tweeted. Dear PM, Please declare #Kerala floods a National Disaster without any delay. The lives, livelihood and future of millions of our people is at stake. — Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) August 18, 2018 He also appealed to Congress workers to help those in need in the flood-ravaged state. "Across Kerala & now Kodagu in Karnataka, heavy rainfall has caused widespread devastation. This is the time for our workers & leaders to demonstrate the core Congress values of service & love. Please focus all our resources & people to help those in need," he said in another tweet. Ketto, one of India's biggest crowdfunding sites, has launched a campaign for the affected. Please click here for details on how you can help. Note: This information has been provided/published on a good faith basis, without any commercial motive. NDTV does not vouch for the authenticity of the claims made by the intending donee, nor can we guarantee that the donations made by a donor will be used for the purpose as stated by the intending donee. You are requested to independently verify the contact information and other details before making a donation. NDTV and/or its employees will not be responsible for the same.<doc-sep>The party has decided that all its MPs and MLAs will donate a month’s salary for flood relief. The party has decided that all its MPs and MLAs will donate a month’s salary for flood relief. Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday asked the government to declare the floods in Kerala as a national disaster, and said the Rs 500-crore financial aid announced by the Centre after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit there was “nowhere near enough”. The party has decided that all its MPs and MLAs will donate a month’s salary for flood relief. “Dear PM, Increasing funds allocated for Kerala relief to Rs 500 Cr is a good step but nowhere near enough. It is critical you declare the floods as a National Disaster. Please do not vacillate as the people of Kerala are suffering,” Rahul tweeted. He held a meeting with top Congress leaders and presidents of state units. “It was decided that all the Congress governments will come forward to help the people of Kerala in this hour of tragedy… It was also decided that all Congress MPs MLAs, MLCs across India will donate one month’s salary, which will be sent through the AICC for relief measures in Kerala,” Congress communication department head Randeep Surjewala said. “We believe Modi should stop discriminating in matters of flood relief between BJP and non-BJP governments… It is time that Prime Minister Modi rises above political partisan game,” he added.<doc-sep>With the monsoon fury showing little sign of abating, S. Anandan and M.P. Praveen report on how Kerala is coping with an extraordinary natural disaster made worse by a fragile flood management system The last thing Varghese Thalikaparambil, 72, probably saw on that Thursday night of apocalyptic rain was water cascading into his house at Manikandanchal, on the banks of the Pooyamkutty river —a tributary of the mighty Periyar in Kuttampuzha panchayat along the eastern border of Kerala’s Ernakulam district. It was August 9. The fast swelling river denied him an early burial. Shortly after he was moved from his flooded house to the relative safety of a nearby church, the waters came for him. His body had to be put on stacks of tables and beds before a few brave men took it across the ferocious currents on a makeshift raft the next morning. By then, just over an hour’s drive from there, water from the Idamalayar reservoir had already cut loose, through four spillways, into the Bhoothathankettu barrage downstream to gnaw at the densely-populated suburban regions of Aluva, Paravur and Kodungalloor. ‘River reclaimed its lost self’ Before long, the main strand of the Periyar was also rushing down the spillways of the Cheruthoni dam, part of the mammoth Idukki reservoir system. It merged a few kilometres downstream with the Perinjankutty river and the tail water of the Neriamangalam powerhouse. It then charged the floodgates of the Bhoothathankettu and heaped misery all around, on its way to the Vembanad lake and the Arabian Sea. “The river has reclaimed its lost self,” says Konthalam, 79, pointing to the swirling waters forcing their way through the fields, houses and chapaths (low-level bridges) a few kilometres down the Cheruthoni dam at Thadiyampad. As a young man, he had travelled from his native Chelliampara to Cheruthoni to work at the dam site. He married a girl from the locality, purchased an old thatched house on the barren banks of the now-dammed river, and settled here in 1978, two years after the dam was commissioned, doing odds jobs as a lorry cleaner and head load worker at the bus stand. “Before the Periyar river was dammed, during summer, we would cross her benign waters on bamboo rafts. But the monsoons, in the last quarter of the year, would make her dangerous. It is very unusual for her to turn ferocious during the southwest monsoon, at this time of the year,” he says. In the 1980s, when wasteland dwellers were given patta (title deed) for the patches of land they lived on, he got ownership of 20 cents of land and possession of much more. “All these houses down the slope were built on land sold by me,” he says, pointing to the submerged structures. “The land was rocky earlier and we had to level the terrain to build.” With the Periyar dwindling to a trickle at some distance, its banks receded, and more houses were built on the slopes. Crops such as rice, tapioca, coconut, black pepper and areca nut flourished in the lowland abutting the stream. Over the years, panchayat roads were built below the electrified houses while chapaths connected the villages on either side. “Never before have we seen the Cheruthoni dam — a part of the Idukki reservoir comprising the Cheruthoni, Idukki arch dam, and Kulamavu dam — fill up in just two months, least of all during the southwest monsoon. But this year, it has been raining excessively since July, and there was talk about the shutter gates of the dam being raised to release water. When people were served notices to evacuate, no one did,” he says. “The dam had released its waters in 1981 and 1992 as well. It is typically done when the water level is near full reservoir capacity, in order to ease the pressure on the structure, and there had been no damage on those occasions. This time around, after the second and the third gates were opened in quick succession, the surging waters forced people to flee their homes, leaving everything behind, and take shelter in their kin’s houses in the upper reaches. On the earlier occasions, too, they had opened all the shutters, but had done so only for a short duration. The level to which the gates are opened depends on the quantum of water to be let out. This time the quantum was more than ever before. The rains have been incessant. The shutters have remained open for over a week now and the river has washed away the bridges and roads, gobbled up crops, and destroyed houses and livelihoods,” says Konthalam, as he hurries up to his unplastered house, built under a housing scheme from the panchayat. Water was lashing the retaining wall of the house, below which lay buried the sole investment and possession of Asha and Santhosh, who are in their 40s – their house on five cents of patta land. The couple, along with their children, had sought shelter at Santhosh’s parental home a few levels up the sodden and grassy slope. “We have nothing more to lose and so don’t care about what awaits us tomorrow,” says Asha. Her husband is a head load worker in the market. Yusuf, nursing a fractured leg, was the only one to have left his home before the floods came. A little distance away was Beena’s house. She had built it using the compensation she had received following the death of her teenage daughters in a landslip one morning in 2013. Most landslips in the region have happened in the early hours. “I still remember that it was the 27th night of your Ramzan,” she says, glancing towards Konthalam. “It was a rainy day. Our house was at a level below the road and a landslip slammed a roadside building and a portion of the retaining wall into the room where my daughters were asleep. They were 18 and 15 years old. Thrown onto the chapath, both died on the spot,” she says, flashing a torch on the photographs of her daughters and husband, Jose, who succumbed to cancer five months ago. Her son, Joby, stopped studying after Class 12 and is looking for a job. Crops and livestock lost At Vellakayam, across the river from Thadiyampad, people felt marooned. Their access to Cheruthoni town, hardly a kilometre and a half away, was cut off following the collapse of the chapaths. They would now have to take a longer route to get there. “How do we send children to school now?” asks Lincy, a resident of Maryapuram panchayat. For hundreds like Lincy, an immediate concern has been the loss of crops and livestock. “Most of us have small land holdings in the hills, but wild animals would raid the crops. It’s easier to grow crops and vegetable and rear cattle close to the river. Upland people depend on these cultivators for their green grocery,” she says, as personnel from the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) struggle to negotiate the river. They are trying to feed a family’s livestock trapped on a landmass surrounded by water. Residents near Kampanipady in Kalamassery, north of Ernakulam, being rescued by fishermen using traditional fishing boats from Chellanam. | Photo Credit: Thulasi Kakkat The Periyar in spate is even more frightening at Aluva, where it splits into two, as hundreds of people like Lakshmi, a resident of Eloor municipality, realised. On August 9, she opened the doors of her house to have water rushing in. In no time, it soon engulfed her house up to the roof, giving her barely enough time to make it to a relief camp with her ration and Aadhaar cards. “We built our lives little by little, and now we have to start from scratch,” she says. At first, it wasn’t the dam-induced floods but landslips and flash floods that wreaked havoc across the State, especially in Idukki, Wayanad and Kozhikode. At a relief camp at St. Mary’s Church Parish Hall in Keerithodu, Idukki, most of the 450 people sheltered are landslip victims.<doc-sep>
Despite a reduction in rainfall on Saturday, Kerala continues to face the worst flood in a century, with rivers in spate across the state, 80 dams opened, 324 lives lost since May 29 and more than two lakh people in relief camps. On Friday, Chengannur MLA Saji Cherian broke down during a television show on Manorama News. “Please ask [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi to give us helicopters, 50,000 people will die otherwise,” he said. “We have been demanding for Navy assistance since the past four days and still haven’t received any help. Airlifting is the only solution. Please, please, please.” This sense of helplessness is shared by other legislators and parliamentarians in Kerala. Scroll.in spoke to some of them on Saturday about the situation in their areas and what relief is needed. Chalakudy: More helicopters, better medical care are needed Chakakudy in Thrissur district in central Kerala is one of the worst-affected areas in the state. The Lok Sabha Member of Parliament from Chalakudy, Innocent (who uses only one name) told Scroll.in that despite the massive relief efforts by both the Kerala government and the armed forces, the area is facing a critical situation after the Chalakudy river, the fifth largest in Kerala, breached its banks on Friday. “Flood waters have entered hospitals as well,” he said over the phone. The biggest hurdle to the rescue is the massive flow of water with strong currents that are hampering boat movements. Innocent said the area required at least 20 helicopters to evacuate people stranded in the water. On Friday, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said more helicopters would be diverted to the area to expedite the rescue efforts. According to the MP, while thousands of people have been rescued from the flood waters over the last two days, medical care is turning out to be a challenge. In particular, elderly residents are facing the brunt. “There are a lot of people who have kidney ailments and need dialysis,” he said. “The government camps and hospitals are functioning to full capacity. But the need is massive.” Apart from dialysis machines, Innocent added there are many cancer patients who need care. “The medical camps are brimming with people,” he said. Palakkad: Roads and bridges have collapsed Palakkad, neighbouring Thrissur, lies on the border with Tamil Nadu. Lok Sabha member MB Rajesh said the situation here was better on Saturday. “Water levels have come down drastically and the dams are not releasing any more water,” he said. “More than 2,000 people have been evacuated from waterlogged houses and have been sheltered in various places in Palakkad town.” Altogether, more than 10,000 people are now housed in around 90 relief camps in the district. Rajesh said some parts of Palakkad have been completely isolated because of the collapse of roads and bridges. “Between Pattambi and Thrithala, a bridge across the Bharatapura river has been damaged,” he said. “Thrithala has been cut off from the rest of Palakkad.” Nelliyampathy, which is a hilly region in Palakkad, has also been cut off from other parts of the district. “There is only one road and that has suffered mass damage,” he said. “So now we are using BEML trucks used by Indian army to send essential supplies through a forest route.” The MP said relief supplies were being mobilised from multiple sources including Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. “I think we have enough stocks of essentials at the relief camps. Now if anybody would like to help they should contribute to the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund.” Ernakulum: More rubber boats needed for rescue Ernakulam is one of the most populated districts of Kerala. Kochi city is part of the district. The floods here have been severe. On Saturday, Lok Sabha member KV Thomas from Ernakulum said rains continued to lash the area and flood waters were not receding. “There is still flooding,” he said. “Because of the high tide, water is not draining out.” Helicopter operations to rescue stranded people has been slow because of bad weather. Boats were being pressed into service but often without much success. “So far, the boats we have been using are the fibre boats that fishermen use,” Thomas said. “These fishermen are very experienced but they are not able to navigate the shallow flood waters in the city. You have to get into nooks and corners.