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This Article is From Dec 09, 2015

Meet the Rescue Chennai Team: Varalakshmi, Arya And Vishal

Meet the Rescue Chennai Team: Varalakshmi, Arya And Vishal
Varalakshmi at the Rescue Chennai Team basecamp. (Image courtesy: iFlickz.com)
New Delhi: Chennai and other parts of Tamilnadu are devastated by the heavy rains over the last few weeks and South Indian movie stars like Vishal, Arya,Karthi, Varalakshmi Sarathkumar,Shanthnu, Ramana,Soundararaja,Aari, Krish, Munna, Sanjay Bharathi, Sona, Nanda and many others got together to form Rescue Chennai , a relief operation to help 'as many' as they can.

In this exclusive interview to iFlickz.com, Vishal, Varalakshmi and Arya showed how they've set-up a basecamp at Lady Andal School in Chennai and shared the details of their work. "We are getting a lot of supplies here, which we are unloading here at our base camp and then sending it off in different areas," said Varalakshmi Sarathkumar.

Varalakshmi showed how they've divided the school in six parts to store different supplies such as blankets, food packets, medicines and toiletries. "A lot of people from Chennai city have come up to help," Varalakshmi said.

"A lot of things are coming in, but it is not reaching the right people. One of the things that we are doing is to verify, say, if the food is reaching the right people or not," said Arya, who was recently seen in Inji Iduppazhagi (Size Zero). "We are not catering to individuals. So if we know a place is affected, we send our volunteers and get it checked, get them to send pictures to us, and then we distribute the material from here. We also keep a database of the pictures we've received," he added. (Also Read: Shah Rukh, Team Dilwale Donate Rs 1 Crore to Relief Fund For Chennai)

"A lot of material is coming in from all parts of the country and it becomes our responsibility to distribute it appropriately. The entire team is doing a fantastic job," said Arya.

Vishal also talked about Cuddalore, a coastal town, which was one of worst affected places by the heavy downpour in Tamil Nadu over the last few weeks. "We have some people in Cuddalore, so we are an entire cut to them, so that they can distribute it," he said. (Also Read: Siddharth Says Cuddalore 'Needs Help Not Panic')

Arya also revealed that actors from different parts of the country have been sending in supplies to their team. "Rana Daggubati (star of Baahubali) has already sent in six trucks of supplies from Hyderabad."

He also elaborated on the need for medical camps. "The rains have stopped for now, and we need a lot of medical caps to make sure that people are not infected."

The team has also set-up a medical centre where a doctor sorts through the medicine they receive as part of donation. "We don't want to prescribe wrong medicines to people. There are a lot of doctors here who segregate the medicines and when people come to us for medicines we send them to the doctors," Varalakshmi explained.

Varalakshmi also clarified that their group is not affiliated to any other group. "It's just a bunch of human beings coming together to help others. There are a lot of people who've come together to help with this. A lot of people from our fan clubs and vanity boys have all helped us," she said.

Actor Vishal said that he had no idea that the Rescue Chennai Team initiative would become "so huge."

"We started with just one car of supplies to a particular area. And then we thought we should have a basecamp to stock up our supplies. Thanks to the Lady Andal School, who gave us a place to stock everything. And then we got a proper control room, with a database and everything. All the actors pitched in to support us in this situation," he said.

Towards the end Varalakshmi said that they'd slowly let others take charge of the entire activity. "This is not a five-six days job. This will continue for months. So what we are planning to do is to as much as we can and then slowly hand it over to people who can continue," she said.

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