Flood alert to Southern TN districts; Stalin appoints monitoring officers

CHENNAI: To accelerate rescue operations in Tirunelveli, Tenkasi, Kanyakumari and Thoothukudi districts, Chief Minister M K Stalin on Sunday appointed eight senior IAS officers to monitor the works along with District Collectors.

According to the statement from state government, "CM Stalin has appointed S Nagarajan to Kanyakumari district, R Selvaraj to Tirunelveli district, P Jothi Nirmala to Thoothukudi district and Shunchonngam Jatak Chiru to Tenkasi district are appointed as monitoring officers. In addition to this, G Prakash, P Ponnaiah, Kiran Kurala and S Sivarasu have been appointed to speed up the revenue works in these four districts."

Further, three teams of 90 soldiers from the SDRF have rushed to Kanyakumari which is experiencing heavy rains and three teams of 90 soldiers have rushed to Tirunelveli district.

Apart from this, two teams of 50 soldiers from the NDRF have rushed to Tirunelveli and Thoothukudi districts for rescue and relief operations.

The state government has also sent 2.18 lakh warning SMS to 2.18 lakh people as the surplus water is released from the dams due to heavy rains.

Further, the CM has directed the District Collectors of these four districts to arrange the boats for the rescue operations.

Meanwhile, Stalin directed the private firms in these four districts to function with only essential personnel in case of unavoidable circumstances.

"People living in low-lying areas should be accommodated in the relief camps. Food, drinking water, milk and medicines should be provided to the people in the relief camps. Sufficient stock of bread, biscuits, water bottles, milk powder should be kept, " Stalin told Collectors.

"People should avoid going to water bodies. Selfies should be avoided in dangerous places and near water bodies. People should keep away from dead power lines. People can reach out to the State Emergency Operations Centre by dialling 1070 and 94458 69848," he added.