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There has been a slight respite from two days of sustained rainfall over the worst-hit northern districts of Kerala, but the threat of landslips and flooding loom large. Flooding situation worsened in Kannur, Kozhikode, Malappuram, and Wayanad districts today even as large parts of adjoining Thrissur and Ernakulam are being submerged under overflowing dam waters.
'Defies description'
The situation defies description at Pathanamthitta in Central Kerala where waters released from the dams have encroached into the second floors of houses with people stranded on terraces. Even well-to-do families of non-residents with aged relatives are forced to fend for themselves with relief and rescue teams having a tough time locating each to reach help.
Social media, including WhatsApp, is flooded with requests for help after stranded people taught themselves to use Google location services to mark themselves out. Earlier, government agencies had come out with a short 'do-it-yourself' tutorial on its public-facing dissemination platforms on setting up mobile phones to locate oneself to the relief and rescue teams.
Requests have since poured from mostly the forests-and-dams-bound Pathanamthitta, with relatives from abroad tweeting their requests on behalf of their near and dear ones back home.
Next 'low' soon
Meanwhile, a monsoon depression, at the centre of the flooding events in Kerala and elsewhere, had moved from the Odisha coast and across Chhattisgarh into Vidarbha this morning. The movement away from the sea and towards the hinterland must help reduce the intensity of rainfall over Kerala, which is now apparently happening now.
In this context, though, the likely behaviour of a successor low-pressure area expected to be generated over the Bay of Bengal in the next couple of days is being watched.
A patented west-north-west trackthat takes it across East India, Central India and North-West India is being favoured. This should not normally bring very heavy rainfall to Kerala. But any change of track towards the South could likely change the dynamics of the situation, with the possibility of Kerala being brought into focus yet again.
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