Helicopters of the Indian Air Force led the way in rescuing stranded people from Upper Bhavani section in Nilgiris as heavy rains lashed the area for the last three days. According to the Defence Public Relations Office, choppers of the Sarang team were pressed into rescue missions in the Nilgiris.
The choppers were put into service on Friday after a call for help from the Nilgiris District Administration. The mission was to rescue those who were in need of emergency medical attention from Upper Bhavani region in the Nilgiris. A total of 15 people, four on Friday and 11 on Saturday, have been evacuated from inundated and flood-hit areas.
“Southern Air Command acted swiftly to call for help from District Administration of Nilgiris district. About 40 citizens were cut off North of Upper Bhawani dam after a major landslide. Two ALH helicopters of Sarang team swung into action,” the official handle of Defence Trivandrum tweeted.
Though at first, they could not reach the spot due to bad weather, their second attempt was successful in reaching the location of the disaster. “The Captain realised that a family of four with two severely ill children had to be evacuated. The family was swiftly flown out of harm's way to Coimbatore Airfield safely and handed over to medical authorities(3/4),” tweeted the handle.
Though the crew tried another shot at flying over the region to drop off food supplies, bad weather prevented it from doing so on Friday. On Saturday, the mission continued, with the helicopters successfully dropping off supplies to the affected site.
“In continuation with missions done in Nilgiri hills yesterday, Sarang helicopter of Southern Air Command conducted two missions today (Saturday). The crew negotiated inclement weather to reach North of Bhawani Dam in Nilgiris. They did an aerial survey to assess the extent of damage and airlifted a large amount of food and relief material to the affected site. 11 people requiring medical help have been evacuated to Coimbatore,” the PRO informed.
Nilgiris district is one of the regions that has received massive rainfall in the last three days. Avalanche, around 20 kilometres from Ooty, received around 911 millimetres of rainfall over a span of 24 hours as on Friday morning, the highest amount of rainfall received in 24 hours in south India in the last seven decades.
As per data from the Indian Meteorological Department, Avalanche recorded 350 millimetres of rainfall as on Saturday morning, followed by Upper Bhavani, which received 190 millimetres.