Source

CHENNAI, INDIA, December 28, 2004: The RSS issued the following press release from “source”:



The purpose of the press release is to appraise the public of the relief work organised by the RSS and to appeal for assistance in the form of medicines, clothing, blankets, sarees and more importantly donations for relief and rehabilitation includes housing, boats and fishing nets and other infrastructure to put the affected back to work.



The RSS Tamilnadu has deployed over 1,000 volunteers in nine major centers devastated by the tsunami tidal wave. The State wide relief work is headed by Shri. Baktavatsalam, the Joint Provincial Organiser of RSS in northern part of Tamilnadu. The first major task was the supply of food, medicines and clothing on the one hand and on the other the more difficult and demanding task of disposal of the dead. The RSS has besides mobilizing the volunteers locally also mobalized and rushed volunteers from Coimbatore. Madurai, Salem, Trichy, Ambur and Erode. Outside reinforcements have gone mainly to Nagapatttinam, the worst affected place.



The relief work in Nagapatttinam is led by Shri P. M. Nagaraj and Shri. Parameswaran who are coordinating the work with the District collector and DRO. The massive work of disposal of the dead by burial or cremation was virtually handled by the volunteers of RSS as many as 1,100 dead bodies were given respectable funeral by RSS workers in Nagapattinam area alone and over 150 elsewhere. Since the collector of Nagapattinam had sent an SOS to the local RSS workers, the state leaderrship rushed Volunteers from all over the State to Nagapattinam. Some 50 students of Vivekananda college, Thiruvedagam, Madurai have also joined in the relief work. The relief work at Kolachal, in Kanyakumari district was started by over 200 Volunteers almost immediately. The effort at Kolachal was coordinated with the Ramakrishna Mission and a Medical camp is functioning under Dr. Srinivasa Kannan and Dr. Daiva Prakasam, RSS workers in Kanyakumari District. In Chennai too the RSS Volunteers swung to action forthwith and organised over 20,000 food packets within hours of the tragedy and distributed hundreds of blankets and sarees by the evening.



Thousands of RSS Volunteers have been collecting rice, utensils and clothing and these have been sent and are being sent to the different centres for distribution. While most of the NGOs are present in Chennai city, the RSS Volunteers have gone to areas where there is least presence of organised relief groups and the State machinery is also inadequate.

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