Tamilnadu Fire and Rescue Services (TNFRS) personnel rescued over 19,157 marooned people in the aftermath of Cyclone Michaung that brought heavy rainfall and flood to the city last week. The Director General of Police (DGP), Fire Services, Abhash Kumar said over 1,800 personnel and officers were working round-the-clock in the city in the rescue mission.
There were a flurry of distress calls on three days — Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. A total of 1,046 calls were received by the fire control room for animal rescue and 597 calls were logged with requests to catch snakes moving in the floodwaters. In three days, the personnel attended to 487 rescue calls.
Mr. Abhash Kumar told The Hindu,” The first boats to be operationalised were our fire services boats which were flat-bottomed boats and they could immediately be launched in any flood spot. In the first two days, our personnel with boats rescued many stranded residents. As per our data, we have rescued 19,157 people in three days. We were fully prepared and had got 67 boats mobilised for the rescue operations. We were operating even at night and deep in the inundated areas.”
Mr. Abhash Kumar went around the flooded areas such as Madipakkam, Pallikaranai and Perumbakkam to rescue the marooned people. Pregnant women, senior citizens and people who required urgent medical assistance were rescued by the fire services personnel in several areas.
Priya Ravichandran, Joint Director of TNFRS, said, “We had mobilised our personnel — about 1,650 in the city with all machinery and also brought in 180 personnel additionally from outside the city — for search and rescue operations. We had 62 rubber boats and 71 vehicles. Besides the rescue of 19,157 people, we also rescued 204 animals and carried out dewatering works in 45 important places. Our personnel also removed fallen trees at 277 spots and cleared traffic blocks.”
In the hectic-week, they also faced two major challenges — a three-day operation to retrieve the bodies of two workers from a 40-foot-deep basement construction which collapsed near Velachery and a 12-hour fight to extinguish a massive fire that broke out in a chemical factory godown in Manali.
