Having learnt their lessons from the deluge of 2018 and a less menacing flood in 2019, people living on the banks of the Periyar in Eloor have essentials, including clothes, some food and a sheet to lie down on, packed and ready to move to a camp at short notice around this time of the year.
“Though the water level did not climb up to the sunshade of the house as it did last year, we were prepared for the worst,” Vasanthi S., a resident of Kuttikatukara in Eloor, said over phone.
“This year, COVID-related restrictions meant that most people in the neighbourhood were not going out to work and had enough time to move everything that was not absolutely essential to a higher spot in the house when we heard that the rain would get heavy,” she said.
Many of them without a second floor or a terrace at the top of their houses had moved some of their belongings to other houses in the neighbourhood, she said. She is staying with over 70 people at a relief camp at the Union Hall in Eloor and is prepared to stay put for a few more days, before she goes home to assess the damage. “Even if the water has receded a little, electricity and water supply at home will remain erratic,” she said.
Prabhavati S., an ASHA worker in Eloor, moved to the camp in the wee hours of Friday when the water rose around her house. Troubles barely seemed to end, she said. She had just completed her quarantine period after four other ASHA workers from the area had tested positive. Since the camp was a hall without separate rooms, some people were likely to soon be moved to another facility to avoid crowding and adhere to the COVID-19 protocol, she said.
In Kunnukara, which is sandwiched between the Periyar and Chalakudy rivers, many residents of Cheriyatheyykanam, a low-lying area, had either moved to rented houses or to live with their relatives, said Manoharan A. B., who also has a few essentials packed up and is ready to move if the water level climbs. “With the virus spreading, most people were bent upon not moving to camps this year,” he said. In anticipation of a flood this year as well, a group of volunteers in the panchayat had earlier helped move electrical equipment from the ground floor of several houses to minimise losses, he said.
The flood and related damage to their house were an annual affair that they had resigned themselves to, said another resident of Kunnukara who is in a camp at Chalakka for people in quarantine. But the situation was worsened by the pandemic, said the resident, who had come in contact with a COVID-19 patient at a private hospital where she had been working.
