As Navy has activated its airbase INS Rajali in Arakonam, about 70km north-west of Chennai, relief efforts gathered momentum with more than 40 tonnes of relief material besides several teams of National Disaster Relief Force (NDRF) airlifted there. Rescue personnel and relief material had now started reaching the flood ravaged state capital. Army and NDRF also doubled the strength of its personnel to speed up relief efforts.
The Rajali airbase is now used for commercial aircraft besides C-17 and C-130J transport aircraft of the IAF to airlift stranded passengers from there to their respective destinations. The airbase had to be converted for civil and military flights as the Chennai airport and adjacent IAF airbase in Tambaram are flooded thereby hampering relief efforts.
The Rajali airbase has the longest airstrip in the country and two C-17 transport planes have so far off leaded more than 40 tons of relief material and hundreds of NDRF personnel. Men and material were later ferried to affected areas in Chennai, Navy Chief Admiral RK Dhowan said here on Thursday.
Focus of the ongoing operation named ‘Madad’ is to provide drinking water and food to people stranded in flooded colonies of the city, he said adding more ships and helicopters will be pressed into service in the next one or two days for relief efforts. Five naval teams with divers and strong swimmers had already rescued scores of marooned people and brought to safer areas, he added.
Meanwhile, the Army has rescued more than 4,000 people and doubled its troops engaged in relief efforts from 400 to 1,000 on Thursday, officials said. Moreover, four teams of Army engineers were working overtime to restore telephone and mobile connectivity besides providing medical treatment to flood affected persons in the military hospital at St Thomas Mount.
Despite fast flowing currents of 5-7 knots at a few places, the Army teams are presently reaching out to the most affected and critical areas. These teams have been operating in areas which are the worst hit by the floods in the areas of Tambaram, Mudichur, Kothurpuram, Pallavaram, Thiruneermalai, Urapakkam, Manipakkam, T Nagar and Gudvancheri towards the outskirts of Chennai and also along areas adjacent to the Adyar River.
Stepping up its efforts, the NDRF also doubled the number of their rescuers to 1,200 even as the force on Thursday decided to penetrate deep into the affected areas to aid the marooned.
A meeting of the Crisis Management Group was held on Thursday morning here under the Chairmanship of Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi along with officials of Ministries of Defence, Food, Railways, Agriculture, Health, Department of Telecommunication, National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), India Meteorological Department (IMD) and NDRF to take stock of the situation.
Giving details of ongoing NDRF operations, its chief O P Singh said here 30 teams, each having 40 members, were working in these areas now and plan was to concentrate in the areas of south Chennai which are the worst affected.
He said the force has deployed about 110 inflatable and other kinds of boats and separate assortment of buoys and life jackets with the rescue and relief teams so that the needy and the marooned get help. The NDRF has so far rescued 2,400 people, he said.
The Crisis Management Team meeting also decided to move two additional columns of the army in these areas even as officials of these central departments were asked to keep in constant touch with their Tamil Nadu counterparts. One column of the army comprises around 75 personnel.
The IAF on Thursday airlifted 14 NDRF teams from Bhubaneswar and New Delhi to Arakonam in C-17s, officials said. Moreover, one C-130J plane brought 109 stranded passengers to New Delhi later in the day while the one C-17 was expected to airlift another batch of passengers to Begumpet in Andhra Pradesh. The IAF has deployed two C-17s and three C-130J planes for round the clock relief operations.
Also, the helicopter operations were on full swing wherein four MI-17 helicopters, one Advance light Helicopter (AlH) and five Chetak were involved actively in relief efforts. One helicopter wass positioned in Tirupati to aid the Andhra Pradesh Government.