A red warning was declared in 8 districts of Kerala on Thursday, August 4 by the India Meteorological Department (IMD) as rains continued to lash various parts of the state. The rains disrupted the day-to-day lives of the people as roads got flooded or caved in and many got displaced from their homes to relief camps. IMD issued a red warning for the day in the districts of Pathanamthitta, Alappuzha, Kottayam, Ernakulam, Idukki, Thrissur, Palakkad and Kannur and an orange alert in remaining districts except for Thiruvananthapuram, where a yellow warning is in place.
A red alert indicates heavy to extremely heavy rains of over 20 cm in 24 hours, while orange alert means very heavy rains of 6 cm to 20 cm. A yellow alert means heavy rainfall between 6 and 11 cm.
Chalakudy region in Thrissur district is facing heavy rains. The Thrissur Collector has asked all those people who were asked to move out of their houses during the 2018 and 2019 floods to vacate immediately. Many panchayats have already evacuated people, the directions are to move people to camps before 4 pm.
The government has said that fishing folk should not venture out into the seas.
The government has opened 101 relief camps and around 5000 people have shifted to the camps across the state. The district administration in Thrissur is evacuating people living near the Chalakudy river immediately.
Ernakulam Collector Renu Raj has come under a lot of criticism as the announcement that educational institutions will remain shut on August 4 was made only at 8.30 am. Many children were stranded in schools, meals prepared for children were wasted. The Collector’s Facebook page was filled with protests from parents. The Collector then said that if students have already reached their school, they can stay back. Many schools however made arrangements for children to be dropped back. Ernakulam district was given a red warning for August 4 and it has left people surprised that the Collector waited till morning to make a decision.
The inclement weather in the state has resulted in water levels of various rivers — like Pampa, Manimala and Achankovil — in Pathanamthitta district rising close to or crossing danger levels.
In Kozhikode, the bad weather led to five flights from the Middle East which were bound to Calicut Airport being diverted to Cochin International Airport. Air Arabia flights from Sharjah and Abu Dhabi, Gulf Air flight from Bahrain, Air India Express flight from Abu Dhabi and Qatar Airways flight from Doha were those diverted to Cochin, the Cochin International Airport Ltd (CIAL) said.