(published in the economic times on september 1, 2018)
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/a-midnight-sos-that-was-answered-by-fishermen-in-kerala/articleshow/65630836.cms?from=mdr
The fishermen of Kerala
have been hailed as the heroes for having swung into action and saved hundreds
of lives in the state’s worst floods in a century. Here's how it all began...
In the afternoon on August
15, Kollam district collector S Karthikeyan received a call from his
counterpart in Pathanamthitta, P B Nooh. He requested five dinghies to be sent
from rescue operations in flooded areas in his district.
It had been raining
incessantly for several days all over Kerala. Most of the reservoirs in the
state had to be opened in the previous couple of days, leading to floods along
most rivers, lakes and low-lying areas. And things were getting much worse than
feared.
Now, the few dinghies in
Kollam were already engaged in rescue mission within the district. So,
Karthikeyan told Nooh he could possibly arrange some fishermen’s crafts. They
were not sure how much it would help, but given the lack of options they
decided to give it a try.
The Kollam collector
immediately called up some fishermen’s societies and asked if they could spare
some small boats for rescue operations. Most fishermen no longer use the
traditional small boat to go fishing in the sea. So they suggested sending the
slightly larger single-engine boats that they use these days. So, at around 4
in the evening, two boats with some fishermen were sent to Pathanamthitta on a
trial basis.
Heavy rains and
large-scale rescue and relief operations continued across the state.
At around 10 in the night
when Karthikeyan was having his dinner, he got another call from Nooh. It was
an SOS to send more fishing boats. Only these boats were now able to do the
rescue operation. Dinghies and rectangular boats of National Disaster Response
Force (NDRF) were largely ineffective, because the water level had increased
significantly in several areas along the Pampa river and its tributaries, and
there were strong currents.
“We were prepared for
floods, but nobody expected rivers to flow on towns,” Karthikeyan told ET.
He called an emergency
meeting with office-bearers of various fishermen’s societies in the town. He
assured them that even a scratch on their boats would be taken care of by the
government. They readily agreed, too.
The problem was, everybody
was sleeping. It was past 12 in the night…fishermen who actually work in boats
were sleeping in their homes, and there were no trucks to ferry their boats to
Pathanamthitta.
“So we started making mike
announcements in colonies, seeking volunteers,” Karthikeyan said. He also
contacted some truck owners. Within 2-3 hours, about 200 fishermen had gathered
near Kollam port, and several trucks reached there with tanks full.
By five in the morning,
nine boats – seven from Vaddy, near Kollam port, and two from Neendakara, the
other big port in the city some 10 km away – left for Pathanamthitta. Another
35 boats were sent by 10 in the morning. By the night on August 16, some 120
boats from Kollam were engaged in rescue operations in Pathanamthitta.
By that time other places,
like Thiruvananthapuram and Ernakulam, too, had started sending fishing crafts
to Pathanamthitta. Television channels had already picked up the story, and the
Pathanamthitta collector had sent an SOS to the chief minister’s office.
The jury is still out on
the reasons for the devastating floods in Kerala, billed as the worst in more
than a century. A proper flood warning system and better management of water
levels in reservoirs might have lessened its impact significantly. There might
have been several slips, and there may still be issues in relief camps and in
rehabilitating people. But what is undeniable is that Kerala pulled off a
near-impossible rescue operation across the state, with everybody from top
bureaucrats and armed forces to local communities and mobile-wielding
youngsters chipping in.
It was an operation where
everybody was a hero, be it an army man or a policeman saving many lives, or
just a common man who gave shelter to others and shared whatever food and
drinking water they had. But one group that everybody now hails as the new
heroes of Kerala is the fishermen who rushed in and threw themselves into the
swirling waters to save people who they had never met.
A video clip of Jaisal KP,
a fisherman from Malappuram, going on all fours in knee-deep flood waters to
let women step on his back to get into a rescue boat is one unforgettable image
that has gone viral on social media all over the world.
As many as 952 fishing
boats and more than 4,500 fishermen from coastal areas of Kerala rescued at
least 65,000 people, mainly in Pathanamthitta, Alappuzha, Thrissur and
Ernakulam districts, between August 15 and August 19.
According to a rough
estimate by Pathanamthitta collector Nooh, out of all the people rescued in the
district, 70% were saved by fishermen, 15% by NDRF and forces, and 15% by the
locals.
“Once they landed there,
fishermen took the responsibility and started saving people stuck at homes on
their own. They did not wait for any instruction from anybody,” Kollam
collector Karthikeyan said.
That was crucial — taking
things in their hands.
Who else can take
decisions as fast as those who have fought with the sea their entire life?
CALLING THE SHOTS
When Treesa reached a
temporary camp behind Aranmula Engineering College in Pathanamthitta in the
evening of August 16, a crowd of more than 900 people there wanted to know only
one thing — is there food on the boat?
Treesa had just six food
packs left on board.
The situation was
desperate. There was not enough time for Treesa to go back to Thekkemala – the
nearest place where vehicles with wheels could still run on roads – and fetch
food back to the camp.
Joy Marian Fernandez, who
was steering the boat, asked if there was any grocery shop nearby that may not
have submerged. Anitha, a village officer coordinating from the camp, said
there was a two-storey government-owned ‘Maveli’ grocery store some 3 km away.
Her husband joined the four-member rescue team aboard Treesa — Joy, his cousin
Jose, and local policemen Sajith and Udayachandran. They broke the locks of
second floor shutters with a big bolt cutter they had kept to cut power lines
and cables blocking their way. All the stock had already been shifted to the
second floor. But water had reached up to their ankles even on the second floor
by now. They ferried several sacks of rice, cooking oil and other groceries to
the camp.
When they reached back the
Thekkemala base —a service station turned into relief camp —the camp in-charge,
Joji, tanked them for solving a grave problem in that hour of crisis. She had
made arrangements for taking all the stock left in the store to other relief
camps in the vicinity, because food and other relief materials had not yet
started arriving in a big way.
Pampa river had by now
eaten up the vast stretch of land between Thekkemala and Chengannur, some 12 km
away. Small hillocks looked like tiny islands. Buildings on those higher
grounds – mostly churches and temples – had been converted into shelters. Boats
mostly took people rescued from houses and terraces to these shelters to save
on time and rescue more people. They also brought food, relief materials and
medicines to these camps.
It was not just about the
boats though.
“If not for those local
policemen, we fishermen could not have saved even 40% of the people,” said Joy,
sitting on a plastic chair in the small veranda of his modest house along one
of the many narrow bylanes at Vaddy, a fishermen’s village near Kollam port.
“They knew the roads and bylanes, otherwise we couldn’t have reached even half
the houses.”
If they had to follow
roads and streets to reach people stuck at homes in residential areas, there
were also stretches where roads ran up to higher areas. So they had cross paddy
fields and sometimes even the gushing river to reach areas such as Malakkara,
Kozhippalam and Arattupuzha.
And there were all kinds
of obstructions, Joy said. There were cables and electricity lines that boatmen
had to cut to make way, submerged walls and fences that they ran into every now
and then, furniture pieces and dead animals floating on the water, and snakes
hanging on to tree branches, walls and gates, he said.
His daughter Mary Rose, a
second-year BSc nursing student, served us tea. There was nice breeze coming
from the sea. Vague growling of the sea crashing on shores hung in the air. The
sea is much calmer now. It has not rained for more than a week. Kerala has
begun its long journey to recovery. In Kollam, perhaps the least affected
place, life has almost got back to normal. The hangover is still very much
there, though.
FAITH IN PEOPLE
From August 16 to 18,
traffic was often stopped on roads here to give way for big fleets of 10, 20,
even 50 trucks loaded with boats from Kollam and Thiruvananthapuram rushing to
flooded areas of Pathanamthitta for rescue operations.
Jacob John’s Saint
Antony’s was part of a 28-boat fleet from Vaddy to Chengannur on August 17.
Jacob, who operated on
Chengannur side of the Pampa river, said truck drivers took as much risk as
fishermen, riding on flooded roads and bridges. For every boat that took part
in the mission, there was a truck that carried it. Jacob remembers parts of
roads where truck wheels were completely submerged. They had to change routes
more than once, before they managed to reach Parumala church Parumala church in
Thiruvalla – which was turned into a relief camp and a base for bringing relief
materials, as wheeled vehicles could reach one side of the church, and boats
could ply from the other side.
Jacob and his four friends
on the boat saved about 1,000 people in two days mostly in Pandanad area, where
water had reached up to half of the second floor of several buildings. It was a
mad rush to save lives. “The engine was crashing into walls and all, but we
just sped through all that, we wanted to save as many people as possible,” he
said.
People all around were as
selfless. When Jacob and his team went to pick up a small group sitting on a
terrace, they told them there was another family nearby that needed help more
urgently. One of the boys got into the boat and led them to a house where there
were three small children, two young women and an old couple waiting desperately
for help on the terrace.
So how did they make out
if there were people inside houses? “We got a kolambi (traditional cone-shaped
loudspeaker) and called out, ‘Is there anybody, brothers and sisters? Please
come out or call out’,” Jacob said.
He stays in a tiny
two-room apartment on the first floor of a residential building right across
the road from Kollam harbour. It was built by the government at the same
location after Jacob and his neighbours lost their houses in the 2004 tsunami.
It was a raw flat then. Jacob got done the flooring and wall tiling and other
fixtures “one at a time”. “I have got two girls, sir, I need to take care of
them,” he said. Joshna and Jisna, studying in class eighth and sixth, were busy
showing me pictures of “papa on TV” on his mobile. Perhaps he need not worry
too much. Now there may be people who come forward when he needs help.
Jiji Philip, a financial
professional in Dubai, said he and his family owe their lives to fishermen who
rescued them from their home in Chengannur when they had lost hope after
spending two nights on the second floor without electricity or charge in their
mobiles, and with hardly any food and drinking water. “When the fishermen were
hit by tsunami and cyclones I didn’t care, I never went looking how they are
doing. And now, when I was caught in a near-death situation, it was fishermen
who came to save me and my family,” he said. “They are the real heroes.”
Perhaps a blessing in
disguise in Kerala’s worst floods is that humanity came to the fore. The entire
population faced it together and stepped in to help.
“The only way an emergency
of this magnitude could have dealt with was complete cooperation from all the
stakeholders. And that is exactly what happened,” Kollam collector Karthikeyan
said. “The government alone could not have done much.”
He said the administration
had sought help from almost all the departments, and several organisation and
individuals, and every one of them cooperated without raising a question –
truck owners, hospitals, doctors, everybody. All the government departments and
employees worked round the clock. The entire Kerala State Electricity Board
(KSEB) and PWD employees are now engaged in repairing work in affected
districts.
The challenge ahead is
enormous. The state will need thousands of crores of rupees to repair its
infrastructure and get back on its feet. But there is hope.
“The biggest insurance we
now have is the faith in people,” says Karthikeyan. “There is a confidence that
people will help and contribute.”
Ends
