Chennai: National Disaster Management Authority Advisor, Kunal Sathyarthi, who heads a Union Home Ministry team of inter-departmental officials to assess the flood damage in Chennai, has found the State government’s capacity building to be good and the people affected by the rains brought by Cyclone Michaung on December 3 and 4 overcoming the tragedy with fortitude.
Speaking to the media in the course of his second day inspection of flood-hit sites in Chennai and the neighbouring districts on Wednesday, he said that the State government officials starting from the Chief Secretary, MLAs, local body representatives and the civil society on the whole had risen to the occasion and done a good job in providing succor to the people.
While Chennai needed to work out a long term plan to overcome such disasters that might occur again and again, he said that he was satisfied with the various ongoing relief work that included the organization of medical camps.
He said that the six-member team headed by him was in Tamil Nadu to find out how the Union Government could help the State in overcoming the disaster and had been asked to be at the site of the catastrophe even as it was unfolding and not in its aftermath to understand the people’s problems, State machinery’s contribution.
Attributing the heavy downpour that wreaked havoc to the weather conditions that prevailed on that day and night when both the cyclone and rainfall happened together, he said he was happy that officers came to the field for rescue and relief.
The team that would leave for Delhi on Thursday after holding discussions with the Chief Minister, M K Stalin, at the Secretariat inspected several affected places and also the Nanmangalam, Red Hills and Sholavaram lakes, the Kilpauk pumping station, the Padi substation and a slew of ravaged localities in and around Chennai.
