SURAT AUGUST 2006 POST FLOOD RELIEF

PRAYAS – WTI – IFAW - Emergency Relief Team

When the waters receded on 13th August 2006 from majority of the areas, the immediate need was to visit and make a quick survey of ground reality in the worst affected areas and gauging the needs for relief as we knew that the areas that we were talking about has over 2000 cattle and uncountable stray animals like dogs and cats.

The surveillance trips were made immediately on two-wheelers by ER team members and within 4 hours we the situation was discussed over phones and two major needs got focused upon. The outskirts semi urban and rural areas all along the Tapi River were totally devastated, and as we feared the worst had happened. The whole area covering almost 5 villages had remained under 5 to 15 ft of water for 5 days. And if one can imagine that these areas had over 2000 cattle and the force of water had displaced many and some were dragged up to around 20 KM away along the coastal lines. As we could gather from the local people we had to now split and focus into three areas where a unit village contained around 500 cattle each in all 7 villages. The animals were badly bruised and injured and even incapacitated to walk. The situation was very grim.

The villages are:

AREA 1: Amroli, Chhaprabhata, Kosad.
AREA 2: Bhatpore, Ichhapore, Pal, Bhata.
AREA 3: Jahangirpura, Ugat.

We tied up with our extension of ER team in Valsad called “PRAHARI Charitable Trust” to arrange for green fodder. This is the organization to which we worked together and helped last year where their district was flooded. The joint effort was immediately worked out as to divide the expenses in half. The estimate for providing one truck load (approx 10 MT) fodder was about 6000 Rs., 2500 for labor and 3500 for transport. Mr Sanket Desai immediately came into action to arrange for labor to cut green fodder and found sponsors for the same. We promised to bear the transportation expenses from our funds. The trucks started flowing in everyday and we distributed 10 Truck loads i.e. 100 MT (One Hundred Thousand Kg.) of freshly cut green fodder in the span 7 days to over 2000 cows and buffalows in the above-mentioned areas. The need was so high that the villagers even had reported that newly born calves were dieing of lack of milk from the mother as the mother had nothing to good to eat. We hope our help went in at the right time and right place where over 2000 cattle were in acute need of food. We had given first aid kits to all the teams going in so that the first aid of wounded animals and the distribution of green fodder was done at the same time. For the first 4 days we also covered stray cattle as well as donkeys as they had nothing to eat while the cleaning up of the roads was going on.

The main and very important help we were able to provide was to the displaced animals from the EMPIRE CIRCUS in the Amroli area. Since the Circus was under 10 ft waters, 5 Elephants and 3 horses were shifted on to the approach of the Amroli bridge which was only visible land in the whole area. We gave a truck-load of fodder for those elephants and horses and also provided first aid and dressing to a horse that was very badly wounded. At first the circus manager was very reluctant to let us handle animals but we had to assure him that at that moment we were more interested in giving the animals relief than to fight with him. Our immediate goal was complete, the horses were treated and all animals were fed.

Since the floods receded, we have shifted 43 buffalos / cows / calves who were in very bad condition, to the local Panjrapol (Cattle shelter) and the veterinary hospitals for treatment and adoption.

The work is still going on. Snake rescue is on the peak with over 5 calls a day, and birds too are coming in with couple of calls a day.

We express our special thanks to Mr. Dharmesh Solanki (PFA MUMBAI) and Mr. Sanket Desai (PRAHARI VALSAD) for helping us in our emergency relief during the worst floods in the history of Surat.

List of Organisations to thank:

1. Nandini Veterbary hospital, Surat.
2. Surat Panjrapol Trust