Valparai rain: 305 families shifted to temporary relief camps

COIMBATORE: The Coimbatore district administration has evacuated 305 families from Valparai taluk as a precautionary measure after the hill town received heavy rainfall in the last two days. The Tamil Nadu Disaster Response Force (TNDRF) has deployed a team in Valparai to take precautionary measures.

Jayashree Muralidharan, secretary to government, social welfare and women empowerment department and district monitoring officer, on Wednesday convened a meeting of officials to take precautionary measures in the rainy season.

Coimbatore district collector Kranthi Kumar Pati, Pollachi sub-collector A Catherine Saranya, Valparai municipal chairman S Alagu Sundaravalli and Valparai municipal commissioner Vinayagam took part in the meeting

“We have set up temporary relief camps in Valparai and surrounding areas to provide a safe shelter to the people living on the banks of the river. Our revenue department has evacuated 15 families from Kamaraj Nagar and relocated them to Valparai Sacred Heart Higher Secondary School and 170 families from Kakkan Colony, Ceylon Colony and Vazhaithottam have been transferred to Government Higher Secondary School in Valparai Municipal areas,” said the district collector.

He said 25 families residing were shifted to Panchayat Union Elementary School and 50 families from Periyar Nagar have been relocated to Panchayat Union Middle School and Urulikal Panchayat Elementary School. Twenty families from Rottikadai Quarry have been shifted to the Lower Paralai Panchayat Union Elementary School, and 25 families residing in Dhobi Colony have been moved to the Municipal Community Hall.

Jayashree inspected work at the 23rd hairpin bend where landslip reported, and 2,000 sandbags were used to prevent further landslip in the area.

She visited the Idathukarai area where a woman and her granddaughter were killed in a landslip on July 30. She condoled the family members of the deceased.

She instructed the officials to handover the PWD (public works department) road (Maukkuparai checkpost to Pannimedu stretch) to the Valparai municipality.

Collector Kranthi Kumar Pati said more than 300 families have been residing in the PWD land at Sholayar reservoir areas for more than five decades. “We are planning to shift them from the neernilai (waterbody) poramboke land. Revenue department officials in Valparai asked to find some revenue land in Valparai taluk to shift the families,” said Kranthi Kumar Pati.