Death toll hits 368 in Kerala, rain intensity likely to reduce from Monday

Centre has announced an assistance of Rs 5 bn to flood-hit Kerala, however, Rahul Gandhi said that the aid is 'nowhere near enough' and that Modi govt should declare the calamity a national disaster

For the past couple of days, the South-Indian state of Kerala is reeling under one of the worst floods it has faced in over a century. The death toll went up to 368 as 33 more deaths were reported on Saturday. Around 58,000 people have been rescued so far and the red alert is still in place in three of the 14 districts of Kerala.

The Centre has announced financial assistance of Rs 5 billion as Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Kerala to take stock of the situation. The floods have inflicted a loss of around Rs 195 billion on the state's economy.

The government has pushed as many as 67 helicopters, 24 aircraft, 548 motorboats and thousands of rescue personnel from Navy, Army, AirForce, NDRF, Coast Guard and other central armed police forces into service for the rescue operation in the state.

Even as Indian Army and Indian Air Force continued to provide assistance in the relief work, Indian Navy further scaled up its 'Operation Madad' to meet the increasing requests for rescue. The Navy had 72 diving teams deployed as on August 18.

Helping hands

As the relief work remained underway, people from all walks of life came forward to help those in distress in cash and kind. People are making donations from all over the world with various mobile applications such as Paytm and Amazon, etc. placing separate options to donate for the rescue work in the flood-hit state of Kerala.

Union Railways Minister Piyush Goyal on Saturday announced that Railways will provide free transportation of relief material for Kerala coming in from various state government agencies, PSUs and other government agencies.

Alliance Air, which is a subsidiary of the state-run Air India, announced that the airline will commence operations from the Kochi naval base from August 20 to help in the rescue operations. Earlier, Union Civil Aviation Minister Suresh Prabhu appealed to domestic airlines to keep the fares of flights scheduled to from Kerala airports at an optimal level.
 

States stepping in to aid

A number of state governments too, stepped in to provide financial assistance for the relief operations in Kerala. Rajasthan, Gujarat and Haryana government announced a help Rs 100 million to chief minister's relief fund. Similarly, Uttar Pradesh announced Rs 150 million, Maharashtra Rs 200 million, Jharkhand Rs 50 million as assistance to Kerala among several other states. Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi announced that its MLAs will donate a month's salary to CM's relief fund. Rahul Gandhi too, said that Congress legislators would too donate a month's worth of their salaries for the relief work.

What lies ahead

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Saturday said that the intensity of the rainfall in Kerala is expected to reduce in the next two-three days. The rainfall will reduce from August 20, Mritunjay Mohapatra, IMD Additional Director General said.

Meanwhile, Congress president Rahul Gandhi took to Twitter to target Modi government and said the assistance announced by the Centre was 'nowhere near enough' and asked to declare the calamity as a 'national disaster'.