Chennai: In its 11 years in Chennai, Deccan Chronicle saw three major natural disasters striking Tamil Nadu. First came the flash floods in 2005 when the Corporation had to hire boats for perhaps the first time in its history to ferry people. This was in the year immediately after the tsunami had struck the coastline causing considerable damage. And then there was Cyclone Thaane, which struck the Cuddalore coast in 2011.
But all those events seemed to pale in comparison to the scale of damage and the number of people affected by the floods of 2015 in which Chennai, neighbouring districts of Tiruvallur and Kancheepuram, Puducherry and Cuddalore suffered the most.
The 2015 December floods marooned a whole portion of northern Tamil Nadu, wreaking most havoc in Chennai, Kancheepuram and Cuddalore districts. During this period, DC had also elaborately covered disasters in the Nilgiris district, which witnessed back-to-back landslides in 2009 when heavy rains lashed the entire stretch of the pristine Western Ghats. The situation was such that the then ruling DMK dispatched a battery of ministers along with its local MP A. Raja to see the restoration of the hilly district, with the team remaining in the district for more than two weeks trying to direct recovery operations .
Similarly Cyclone Thaane struck Cuddalore in 2011 and the then AIADMK government dispatched its senior ministers along with the top official Gagandeep Singh Bedi to monitor the relief and restoration process. DC kept its readers in touch with the whole operation through the revenue secretary and the collectorate while also showcasing grey areas which the government may have failed to address.
Besides bringing quality stories of people in distress responding bravely to the crisis, DC also broke a series of stories exposing how the revenue department had failed to enumerate the number of flood victims in Nandanam, Saidapet and parts of Ekattuthangal. To benefit the flood victims of the worst hit Tambaram, DC carried news items in January tipping off the Kancheepuram collector R Gajalakhshmi, who then played an instrumental role in helping those flood victims to avail their compensation.
In the most difficult circumstances, our correspondents worked with the government and local bodies encouraging them with relief coverage while at the same time highlighting the failure of government officials to ensure babus attended to the needs of the flood-affected.
