Kerala floods: The pregnant woman is seen holding on to a rope as she is pulled towards safety
A pregnant woman who was living in a house on the banks of a river in Kerala's flood-hit Attappadi district was carried across the river in a rope by rescue personnel today. In a video, the pregnant woman is seen holding on to a rope as she is pulled towards safety, her body fasted to a hanging belt suspended over the strong currents of the muddy Bhavani river below.
The eight-month pregnant woman, Lavanya, lives with her husband and their one-and-a-half year old child in the house now under floodwaters.
She said her husband had also undergone a surgery for an illness recently.
Rescuers of the Kerala Fire Force and the state police pulled her towards the other side of the river, from where she was sent to a hospital for a medical check-up.
Videos of dramatic rescue have been coming out of Kerala, as rescue personnel from the military, the state administration and the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) fanned out across the southern state to save people from rising floodwaters.
A newborn was rescued by the Army today morning. In visuals, a soldier is seen holding the baby wrapped in waterproof cloth, while another puts an umbrella over them.
In Kannur, as roads turned into rivers, fishermen, the Territorial Army and locals coordinated rescue operations using boats to enter hard-to-reach places.
At least 42 people have died in the floods in Kerala since Thursday. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has been meeting with officials of the State Disaster Management Authority at their control room to oversee coordination of relief and rescue operations every day, and briefing the media twice a day.
The Central Water Commission said the water level in some rivers has risen to a dangerous point. Heavy rainfall has been forecast from August 15.
All rescue teams including locals and the NDRF have been seen helping in retrieving bodies and evacuating people. With rain continuing, fresh landslides have been reported, making rescue operations extremely difficult.
In Wayanad, thousands of people have been evacuated.
The Kerala Chief Minister's office today said over 1,000 flood relief camps are operating across the state. "These camps now host 124464 persons from 34386 families. Kozhikode has the most number of camps - 218," it said.
An entire cluster of homes of plantation workers at a tea estate in Wayanad was swept away by a landslide on Thursday evening. Some 40 people are still feared trapped under the debris in another landslide in Malappuram, the Chief Minister said. The rescuers are finding it difficult to navigate around the debris due to multiple low-intensity landslides in Wayanad, official said, adding this area has not seen a landslide in 20 years.