Kerala floods: Govt cancels all official celebrations for one year

Thiruvananthapuram, Sep 4: In the wake of devastating floods in Kerala which claimed over 450 lives and left lakhs homeless, the LDF government passed an order Tuesday cancelling all the official celebrations for a period of one year.

According to the order, passed by the state's public administration department, the funds set aside for these programmes will be diverted into the chief minister's disaster relief fund. The main challenge before Kerala is rehabilitation of people whose houses were either washed away or badly damaged due to heavy rains and floods towards the end of July and August.

Major cultural fixtures in the state's annual calendar such as the film festival, youth fest and the state-level school fest stand cancelled.

Beginning in July 2018, severe floods affected Kerala, due to unusually high rainfall during the monsoon season. It was the worst flooding in Kerala in nearly a century. According to the Kerala government, one-sixth of the total population of Kerala had been directly affected by the floods and related incidents.