Flood Relief Activity

The 2015 South India floods resulted from heavy rainfall generated by the annual northeast monsoon in November and December 2015. They affected the Coromandel Coast region of the South Indian states of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. More than 500 people were killed and over 1.8 million (18 lakh) people were displaced.
The floods were the costliest to have occurred in 2015 and were among the costliest natural disasters of the year.
Various parts of Tamilnadu were affected with the most damage to have occurred at Chennai, Chidambaram, Thiruvallur, Kanchipuram and Cuddalore. Chennai was officially declared a disaster area on the evening of 2nd December 2015. Chembarambakkam Lake had been opened and the flood hit the entire Chennai claiming many lives. National Disaster Management Team, Various NGOs and Volunteers were in action. With a letup in rainfall, floodwaters gradually began to recede in Chennai on December 4, 2015, though 40 percent of the city districts remained submerged and safe food and drinking water remained in short supply. Though relief efforts were well underway across most of the area by December 3, 2015, the lack of any coordinated relief response in North Chennai forced thousands of its residents to evacuate on their own. As intermittent rains returned, thousands of displaced residents from Chennai, Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur districts attempted to flee the stricken region by bus or train and travel to their family homes. The people in the flood-affected area suffered without food, water,electricity supply with their homes submerged in water.

Many city neighbourhoods, however, remained flooded with some lacking basic necessities due to the uncoordinated distribution of relief materials. In South of Chennai, heavy rains and flooding persisted into the second week of December 2015. In Kancheepuram district, Chengalpattu, Kanchipuram, Nandivaram-Guduvanchery, Perungalathur, Tambaram, Mudichur and Anakaputhur were inundated in floodwaters up to 7 metres deep by December 5, 2015, which washed away roads and severed rail links; 98 people from the district were reported to have died.

Between December 4, 2015 and December 5, 2015, parts of Villupuram and Tiruvarur districts received up to 10 centimetres of rain, while some towns in Cuddalore district saw up to nine centimetres. Flood alerts were broadcast to 12 villages in the neighbourhood of the Tirumurthy dam in Tirupur district on December 7, 2015, as the dam was likely to reach capacity within two days; the residents of those villages were urged to evacuate. Due to rainfall in Tirunelveli district, all of its dams had reached or were approaching full capacity by December 7, 2015, forcing local authorities to discharge thousands of cusecs of water from reservoirs and causing the Thamirabarani River to reach flood stage. Torrential rains inundated hundreds of acres of paddy fields in Thanjavur, Tiruvarur and Nagapattinam districts, and caused residential areas to flood by December 8, 2015. Large parts of Thanjavur city were marooned by rising waters, while several houses collapsed under the brunt of rainfall in Kumbakonam and Veppathoor. After Chennai district, Cuddalore district was among those most severely affected by the flooding. Six of the district 13 blocks suffered extensive damage during the floods in November 2015.

Supplies of basic necessities, including milk, water and vegetables, were affected due to logistical difficulties. During the December 2015 floods in Chennai and the adjoining areas, milk packets sold five times more than their usual cost. Water bottles and cans were sold at prices between 100 and 150 rupees. Vegetables were sold at 6 to 10 times over and above their normal average cost at the wholesale level.