Kerala CM Satheesan visits flood-hit areas, announces relief, resilience plan

Kerala Chief Minister V D Satheesan on Tuesday, 4 August, visited flood-hit areas in the district and announced Rs 10,000 financial assistance for households whose homes were flooded by the recent rains.

He also said the government was considering setting up a disaster management and resilience system to improve early warnings for sudden weather changes.

Speaking to reporters here, the CM said, "More rain gauge systems, both manual and AI-enabled, will be set up. There are reputed expert agencies, such as the Hume Centre for Ecology and Wildlife Biology and Cochin University, working in the field of climate change. Their expertise will also be utilised to develop an effective climate forecasting and early warning system, which will be implemented as a pilot project in Pathanamthitta district."

He said the challenge at present was that cloudbursts or extremely heavy rainfall often occurred without warning, leaving little time to evacuate people to safety.

"Very heavy rainfall is occurring over short periods. Usually, rainfall exceeding 200 mm is classified as extremely heavy, but this time some places received as much as 340 mm," the CM said.

He said another major reason for flooding in many places was landslides and landslips inside forests.

"We were fortunate that the loss of life was limited," he said, while confirming that seven persons were still missing following the heavy rains.

Satheesan said the proposed disaster management and resilience system, which he said would be the most effective in the country, would be taken up after examining all aspects, including landslides and landslips inside forests.

He attributed the floods to the accumulation of silt in riverbeds, alleging that desilting had not been carried out since 2019.

He said the government would not wait for another flood to take action, as no desilting exercise had been carried out over the past several years.

The CM said the situation was being closely monitored and all necessary arrangements had been made for relief and rescue operations.

As part of these measures, NDRF, police, Fire and Rescue Services and RDF teams had been deployed.

He said the required officials would be deployed, medical check-ups would be conducted in all relief camps, and arrangements had been made to supply materials for chlorinating well water in flood-affected areas.

(With agency inputs)