Solidarity with Kerala flood victims

The Indian community in Malta has raised more than €3,800 to help the victims of the floods that swept through the southwestern Kerala state earlier this month. Considered to be the worst floods in Kerala in a century, their death toll has so far risen to almost 200, while more than 200,000 people, including children, have been forced into relief camps, where they are living on the bare essentials, if any at all. A spokesman for the Malta Malayalee Association, which gathers the Indian community living in Malta, said the sum had been collected over the weekend, mainly last Saturday during an activity organised in front of Parliament in Valletta. “We’ve had friends in Malta who have their families there. Some of them have lost their houses. We wanted to do our little bit to help them,” he said. The floods started at the beginning of the month, killing 164 people, some in landslides, with about 223,000 people forced into 1,568 relief camps. A Reuters witness on board a relief helicopter in Chengannur town in the south of the state said that people stranded on rooftops had been seen waving desperately at navy aircraft. “The town looked like an island dotted with houses and cars...