Volunteers: The undying spirit of Chennai soars on social media

CHENNAI: Various social media platforms served as a strong link between rescue groups and the families in need. X (Twitter), WhatsApp groups and Instagram emerged as major resource-tools for volunteers to join hands towards rescue and relief of the people who were left stranded.

“A couple of friends on X asked if I could put them in touch with someone who could help evacuate their family with boats since their signals were weak and had limited contact. I don’t live in Chennai but the visuals I saw were scary. Lot more were stranded with senior citizens, children and sick family members. No signal, no electricity, no drinking water, no food and dead phones, and they were left to fend for themselves,” says Kirthana, a volunteer.

Numerous requests for boat rescue mainly from Velachery, Manali New Town, Pullianthope, Perungudi, Manali, Vyasarpadi, Valasaravakkam and Pallikaranai were made. “Without social media, the response time to a lot of pressing requests would have been terribly bad,” she added.

Several areas in north Chennai, Besant Nagar and certain communities faced neglect. “By posting about them on X, I was able to connect them to friends from relatively drier areas who were able to help them with boat rescue and immediate relief,” stated Kirthana. “However, miscommunication was also a major challenge and despite forming groups to co-ordinate smoothly, resources were often redirected to a different request, transportation was unavailable and there was, and continues to be, fund-crunch.”

Despite poor connectivity and power outages across the city, many individuals from Chennai and in other cities, took to X for live updates and reached out to almost every request on these platforms round the clock.

Swetha, a Chennaiite who was in Bengaluru during the floods, used X to connect requests and availabilities. “There were requests for pregnant women, new mothers and medical emergencies. Many people in flooded areas also had medical issues and some even had chronic illnesses that needed attention. Such requests were attended on a priority basis,” she explained.

Swetha added that they don’t even know the names of people who offered help, but “it was heartening to see people coming together to offer whatever they could”.

Several celebrities including Kishen Das, Shantanu Bhagyaraj, singer Chinmayi, RJ Vijay, VJ Anjana, Santana Bharathi, Tenma and even other X users with a large number of followers joined in to amplify requests and escalate urgent issues to officials on ground.

“Since my mother had assisted in flood relief in 2015, I knew about the areas most impacted and could also connect to the officials. On the first day, we prepared 100 food packets and water bottles for Vyasarpadi. But the water level was so high we could not go in. Some people had not eaten for two days by then. While a few managed to reach us and collect it, transportation was the biggest issue,” recalled Kuyil Mozhi, a city-based law student.

Gradually, more volunteers and NGOs joined these online coordination groups and offline ground work. The supply of essential items such as food, milk, drinking water, sanitary napkins, medicines and candles kept coming. “It was overwhelming to see the amount of trust people showed by contributing money just based on X requests. From Rs 100 to Rs 90,000, we’ve had people contributing and it has just made me very emotional and responsible,” she added.

X and other social media platforms have been the backbone of volunteer-efforts on rescue and relief works. “Without social media, we wouldn’t have volunteers engaging on the ground or people sharing leads and requests. Funding was also arranged by people on X,” pointed out Adithya Muthukumar, aspiring filmmaker and a college student.

Almost a week after the cyclone, these volunteers are still actively involved in helping people who are stranded or have incurred huge losses. As this reporter kept hearing, “the spirit of Chennai overcomes everything”, it is these heroes who embody that spirit.

Ashwanth Kumar, who runs a kitchen for catering based on daily orders since the pandemic, continued feeding the homeless and needy and later, that became a business. What started as a help to an Ashram to prepare food for 300-400 during the recent floods, drew attention and support on social media through friends and Instagram followers.

He prepared food for hundreds of people to provide for the people who were stranded and needed food.

Being based in Perambur, the commute was a major challenge but after two days, he could later reach the people even in Thoraipakkam and Sholinganallur.

"Although it was flooded but our work & volunteering through Social media spread like a forest fire. It was overwhelming to see many volunteers joining us and people donating selflessly. I am so thankful for everyone on Instagram, Twitter and WhatsApp who came forward to take this ahead.