The Corporation of Thiruvananthapuram on Sunday night sent a team of 60 officials to Nilambur in Malappuram district to participate in a cleaning drive to get rid of the debris behind by the floods and landslides.
Speaking to TNM, Anil Kumar, Health Inspector at the Corporation of Thiruvananthapuram said that a Disaster Response and Management Team, consisting of members from the health department of the corporation have been sent to Nilambur based on a request from the Nilambur Municipality for assistance in the cleaning drive.
“During the floods, a lot of furniture and materials like cots, bedsheets, pillows, plastic items and so on, from several homes have been damaged and the families have abandoned them. Nilambur municipality has collected all these abandoned items and our team will go there and clean all these items and see if it can be reused,” said Anil Kumar.
The disaster response team of the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation headed to Nilambur along with a water tanker. They’re also carrying 10 power water jets, a generator, fogging machines, specially manufactured appliances for waste disposal, inflatable emergency lights and so on. The team also consists of Deputy Mayor Rakhi Ravikumar, Education Standing Committee Chairman C Sudarshan and advocate VG Sivakumar.
Ruined materials from various houses collected in Nilambur. Courtesy- Facebook/VK Prasanth.
The Corporation officials will be deployed in Nilambur for three days. Malappuram was one of the worst affected districts in the state following extreme rains this year, which lead to massive landslides, causing severe damage to human lives and property. As per official numbers, the death toll in Malappuram district as of August 25, was recorded to be around 60 and close to 800 houses have been completely damaged in the district.
Even in 2018, when the state was hit by massive floods, the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation had played an active role in sending relief materials as well as teams to help in cleaning drives across the state. In August this year, when the districts in the Malabar region of the state was yet again suffering from floods and landslides, displacing thousands of families into relief camps, the Corporation of Thiruvananthapuram under the leadership of Mayor VK Prasanth sent more than 100 loads of relief items to the affected areas.