Chennai needs help

I write this not just as a travel blogger, but as someone who's had Chennai as their home all their life, and is now witnessing one of the worst natural disasters ever to hit this city.

For those who aren't in the know, Chennai (MAA) has been facing some really rough weather these last few days and weeks. After last week's cyclones (yes, in the plural), Chennai was hit rather hard yesterday. All in, these are the worst ever rains in over a century. Knee-deep water is the new normal right now.

I've been out on the streets and doing a little bit for folks around my home area, which is why I couldn't write about this over the last few days. Things were so bad, that in a residential area near where I live (and nowhere near the beach), we had 10 Navy divers positioned with speedboats, ready to evacuate people if required.

Folks and organisations (including corporates) in the city have been absolutely fantastic and magnanimous, throwing open their homes, offices and other public spaces to random strangers who need accommodation. And not just to people, but animals as well!

So why am I telling you all this?

First things first

There are varying reports for the next few days - some saying more rains expected, and others with a view that the worst is now past us. That said, Chennai needs help.

You can get more information on Twitter using #ChennaiRains, though up until yesterday, mainstream media it seems was completely unaware of the situation in Chennai (let's just say they had other things to deal with in order to help their channel ratings). So all efforts have been largely crowdsourced, and through social media. In fact, up until last night, Buzzfeed was one of the best places to provide rain relief!

Anything you can do to help, is appreciated, and there's enough on Twitter and Facebook on how you can give, who to give to, etc. If you know someone in Chennai, just connect with them for real time news from ground zero, as it were.

Travel

Chennai Airport (MAA) has been shut down since yesterday afternoon, until further notice. All incoming flights have been diverted, there are no outgoing flights. 

Operations at Chennai Airport shut as water started entering airfield-Deepak Shastri,Chennai Airport Director to ANI #chennairains

— ANI (@ANI_news) December 2, 2015

Here's why:

And here's a screengrab from PlaneFinder...absolutely no activity above MAA, and this is at 1230 hours IST on 2 December 2015.

Several passengers have been stranded at the airport itself. A colleauge has been there since 2 pm yesterday, with nowhere to go.

Here are some images (these have been sourced off the internet, apologies for not providing credits for some of these).

Jet Airways 737 parked at the apron

SpiceJet Bombardier Q-400 Dash...with landing gear submerged

Indigo A320 in MAA

Indigo ground staff in knee-deep water at the airport

And a faux pas

And though this isn't the time for jokes, here's a faux pas by CNN IBN in their photo story on Chennai rains and how flights have been affected.

What's wrong with this picture? Well, MAA has never had ONE United flight scheduled in it in, like, forever...leave alone two at the same time. Clearly, someone's used stock images in their story, which only further makes the point about how what's unfolded in Chennai is of least consequence to our mainstream media. I'm personally outraged, but as one of you flyer-folks, this is amusing, to say the least!

Final words

As I said earlier in this post, Chennai needs help. Getting back to normal won't be easy for a majority of this city's people, but resilient as we are, we will do what it takes to return to normal. Any aid, assistance or help in any form is much appreciated by a very grateful city.