Monsoon rain claimed three more lives in Thrissur and Kottayam districts even as thousands in Kottayam, Alappuzha, and Pathanamthitta districts remained displaced from their farms and homesteads for the fifth consecutive day on Friday.
Water level in all three central Travancore districts began to subside by Thursday night but that did not mean the end of the week-old travails of the people in these districts.
At many places, people were forced to remain in relief camps and depend on food supplied at the gruel centres opened by the district administration for survival.
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The coastal areas of Thiruvananthapuram, Alappuzha, Ernakulam, and Thrissur too have been experiencing heavy tidal action, bringing down houses and uprooting coconut palms.
In Pathanamthitta, the newly-constructed road to Sabarimala caved in at one or two places under the impact of the rain. Traffic on the Alappuzha-Changanassery (AC) road remained disrupted for the fifth consecutive day due to heavy waterlogging.
In the northernmost part of Kerala, Kasaragod received copious rain over the past 24 hours.
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Chenakkal Ayyappan, 70, and his son Babu, 45, of Puthukkad in Thrissur died when their mud house came down on them in heavy rain on Thursday night.
Bodies under debris
The neighbours initially thought there was none under the debris but found the bodies of the father and son when they searched the debris. The body of one more person who had gone missing was retrieved from an inundated paddy field at Aymanam in Kottayam. K.K. Raveendran had gone missing from his house on Tuesday.
Most parts of Alappuzha district, especially Kuttanad region, continued to remain submerged.
In Thrissur, where rain continued on Friday as well, camps have been opened at Kodungallur and Mukundapuram taluks. Around 100 government officials have been deployed at various camps. Rehabilitation centres are functioning in schools, parish halls, and anganwadis in the district.