Church appeals for Tamil Nadu flood victims

Caritas India intends to reach out to over 10,000 victim families in the next few days with the relief activities in the first phase.

Cardinal Baselios Cleemis

New Delhi:  The Catholic Church in India has expressed solidarity with the victims of Tamil Nadu floods and appealed to the people to come forward and make voluntary donations for the relief and rehabilitation of the affected.

“The need of the hour calls us to express solidarity with the flood affected suffering families and communities and to contribute our mite for their relief and rehabilitation,” Cardinal Baselios Cleemis, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) said in a statement.

Two days of heavy rains through Dec. 2 brought double the normal rainfall the Tamil Nadu state capital normally receives during its entire two-month rainy season.

The deluge has affected Cuddalore, Kanchipuram, Tiruvallur, Villupuram and Tanjavur districts with the state capital Chennai being the worst hit.

While media reported the death toll in the floods to be 269, it is feared that the actual number would be much higher.

As Over 4,500 relief camps have been opened and public places such as schools, churches, mosques and cinema halls are used for providing temporary shelter to the affected victims.

Cardinal Cleemis said that the floods have left thousands of families in suffering and pain and rendered them homeless without even basic necessities of life.

He urged the bishops, priests, religious, lay leaders and collaborators of Caritas India to encourage the community of faithful, institutions and people of goodwill to make voluntary donations.

Caritas India, the social arm of the Catholic Church in India, has placed a 10-member team in 3 base camps to coordinate the relief operations together with the social development wings of the affected dioceses.

It has started distributing relief kits with food, drinking water, clothes, utensils, sanitary items to the flood victims.

Caritas India intends to reach out to over 10,000 victim families in the next few days with the relief activities in the first phase, the statement said.

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