The night of November 23 (Monday) will not be easily forgotten by many Chennai residents. It was a day when the entire city stood still. When the traffic was stranded following incessant rain, the Disaster Management Committee (DMC) of IIT-Madras sprung into action. They helped people stuck in traffic and at around 11 p.m., Sanobar Sultana of Fever 91.9 FM reached out to DMC with an appeal to help people who got caught in the traffic for hours together.
“The RJ informed us that people near our Institute (IIT) is in dire need of help. They were expecting to return home by 8 p.m., however, even at 12 midnight, they were stranded outside without food, water and washroom facility. We informed our general secretary and hostel affairs secretary about the situation and they reached out to more people through e-mail and Whatsapp,” one of the members of DMC said.
“Some students were on the road helping people, a few others were raising funds from the hostel. We thank Gurunat Stores and Ramu Tea Stall on the campus. They not only provided items on credit, but also volunteered to help people,” he added. Akshit Choudhary, a coordinator of DMC said, “Since our hostel is quite far from the gate, we were not aware of the traffic block. The agenda of our 22-member team was to help people by providing water, biscuits and washroom facility. Our team did not attempt to clear the traffic, as we are not trained for such operations”.
To make IIT-Madras more disaster resilient, the DMC was started three years ago. “We identified how prepared the campus is at times of disasters, assessed how easy or difficult it is for disabled people to move out in case of emergencies, how to prevent stampede and gave suggestions to the administration regarding the measures to be taken,” Akshit added.
Akshit informed that DMC is looking at formulating a standard procedure to be followed during such emergencies and that a medical camp would be organised in the nearby villages in association with EFI, IVil (IIT-M student body) and Chennai Trekking Club.
