Efforts of Southern Command troops in providing succor to flood hit Kerala

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Kerala 

The worst floods in Kerala in over 100 years led to a grim situation needing the Indian Army to be requisitioned by the State Government for rescue and relief operations. Troops from the Southern Command were initially called in in the northern districts of Kannur and Wayanad on the night of 08/09 August.

As the situation worsened in rest of the state, more Army columns were requisitioned and pressed into service.

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In anticipation of the developing situation, Headquarters Southern Command had kept its specialist rescue columns on standby beside staging forward the critical elements closer to Kerala to cut down on the reaction time. Leading up to 15 August, an additional increment of rescue columns was flown in from Pune, Jodhpur, Bhopal, Hyderabad, and Bangalore. The Indian Army columns were operating in 12 out of the 14 districts of Kerala and Kodagu District of Karnataka in these trying circumstances. In standing up to the mammoth challenge of rescuing people and saving lives, most columns worked round the clock for almost a week with utter disregard for their own personal comfort and safety.

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The focus of the operations was fourfold, that is to rescue stranded people from marooned areas, provide temporary connectivity by the construction of bridges, administer medical aid to the sick and wounded besides assisting the civil administration in distributing relief material.

The Headquarters Southern Command also flew in divers from the Special Forces for rescuing people in high-risk areas where the water had submerged the entire area. Once the rescue operations were under control, the focus on providing relief and medical aid was very quickly met by moving  Quick Reaction Medical Teams to the affected areas. Particularly noteworthy had been the determination of a medical team operating in Idukki district wherein they moved on foot for over a day to reach the inaccessible village of Kudi to provide medical aid to the affected people.

Extremely well-coordinated actions by the columns and the planning staff at various Headquarters ensured that maximum people marooned in remote inaccessible areas were rescued in time. The 1500 Army personnel grouped in 100 odd Army teams rescued more than 12500 people, provided medical aid to almost 7000 people, constructed more than 30 temporary bridges in perilous conditions besides clearing landslides at numerous places in the flood-affected districts.

With the rescue operations now nearing completion, most of the columns have wrapped up their operations. The only component of Indian Army left in these operations is a team of doctors and other assistant medical staff, who have established an ad-hoc hospital in Ernakulam district to help the State Government in providing medical aid to one of the worst affected areas of Kerala.  The other medical teams have also commenced their journey back to the bases after having augmented the efforts of the State Government in providing medical aid. The efforts of the Indian Army troops in these operations have been lauded by one and all including Chief of the Army Staff General Bipin Rawat and Southern Army Commander Lieutenant General DR Soni.