In Wayanad, a community emerges to help with relief

A little after 1pm, the loudspeaker at the Meppadi camp crackled into life. “Lunch is ready. People are requested to come down to the ground floor. Those from outside and volunteers should allow inmates to eat first,” a booming voice says. Under a large black coloured tent in front of the Government HS school in Meppadi, now doubling up as a relief centre for those displaced by flashfloods in Wayanad that have left at least 190 dead and over 200 missing, a lunch of boiled rice, sambar and assorted stir-fried vegetables is served.

In Meppadi, 13 kilometres away from Chooralmala and 15 kilometres away from Mundakkai, the two villages worst affected by the landslides that struck Wayanad in Kerala on Tuesday morning, the government lower and higher secondary schools have both turned into relief camps that house over 300 people. They have lost homes and families, and yet there is some succour in these camps, with a steady stream of food, water and medicines pouring in; and doctors and even a trained psychiatrist tending to those in need.

Five years ago, in August 2018, Kerala faced another monsoon tragedy when large-scale floods were reported in large parts of central and southern districts of Kerala, leaving over 420 people dead. Officials, however, said that despite the loss of life, lessons learnt of relief and rescue then, were now being used to mitigate further crisis in Wayanad.

At the Meppadi government school for instance, teacher staff rooms on the ground floor have been converted into offices where chief coordinators — from different government departments — sit with codified lists of those currently in the camp, elderly who need critical care, children and pregnant women. On the blackboard of the staff-room are listed two categories of supplies — those present in large quantities, and those which are urgently needed. Every hour, mini trucks arrive at the school, bringing in supplies, causing these lists to be updated. “We have contact numbers of people who are donating supplies such as clothes, food, blankets, sanitary items, masks and medicines. When we are short of supplies, we give them a call and they arrive promptly,” said a school teacher, working as a coordinator at the camp.

“Till Wednesday, food for inmates came from outside. But from Thursday morning, we have started a community kitchen. Teachers and volunteers will prepare food three times a day along with tea and snacks,” she said.

At the same school, a kindergarten classroom is now a clinic, stacked with medicines on a table, with four doctors and nurses evaluating patients around the clock. A second classroom has Ayurveda practitioners.

Dr Ajay, one of the allopathic doctors who works at a government cooperative hospital in Vadakara, said, “Many inmates are presenting symptoms of fever, body pain and rashes. To prevent a viral fever epidemic and the spread of leptospirosis, we are prescribing doxycycline as a prophylactic. For those with hypertension and diabetes, we have adequate medicine supply.”

The doctor said medical teams are on the lookout for cases of gastroenteritis and cholera in people arriving from landslide-hit zones. “If there are serious symptoms, we shift them to government hospitals,” he said.

Another lesson learnt from 2018, officials said, was the key presence of a trained psychiatrist at the relief centre, circulating among those that require counselling. 44-year-old Sherina Najumuddin, for instance, who survived the landslide in Mundakkai along with her two daughters and elderly in-laws, said, “Facilities at the camp are helping and everything has been provided to us. But I don’t know what I am going to do when they close them. Obviously they cannot go on forever. Both my daughter’s have not been able to sleep for two days. They have seen the landslide and the horror of that night. I must get a counsellor to speak to them.”