For a week, volunteers of Chennai Trekking Club (CTC) have been working with dozens of volunteers for rescue and relief work in the city.
Its founder, Belgian Peter Van Geit, who has called Chennai home for 17 years now, first got together with five others when he realised that large parts of the city were submerged and residents needed to be rescued.
Tubes as floats
“We used lorry tubes as functional floats and for two days, we went to areas such as Pallikaranai and Kotturpuram, rescuing senior citizens, pregnant women, children and those who needed medical help. We found old doors to place on top of the tubes to make them more stable and to get people from their submerged homes to the main road or to distribute food and water. We also worked with Blue Cross to rescue stranded pets,” said Mr. Van Geit.
Helping hands
On Sunday, the club, along with Chennai Runners, organised a street cleaning initiative in 10 localities to clear garbage and help Chennai Corporation’s sanitary workers, Mr. Van Geit said.
“We already have 1,000 volunteers signed up,” he said, adding that he wanted to do whatever he could for the city.
This apart, the CTC has set up three relief centres in the city and surveyed 120 localities to ensure relief materials were reaching those who needed them most, Mr. Van Geit said.
“We sent out volunteers to all the areas and then created a map that was put up online — the map indicated which places were in bad shape in order to direct relief there,” he said.
A cleaning drive covering 10 streets was
organised
on Sunday
