PARSIPPANY — During December 2015, Chennai was hit by several storms, which caused incessant rainfall for about three weeks, which led to flooding, which was attributed to poor infrastructure of the city. The 2015 South Indian floods resulted from heavy rainfall during the annual monsoon in November to December floods 2015. The flooding has been attributed to El Nino phenomenon, which broke a 100 year record and the areas effected were capital of Tamil Nadu – Chennai and adjacent villages and cities. Nearly 400 people have died and 1.8 million have been displaced, with damages exceeding $15 billion.
Abhishek Parthiban, 15, a sophomore in the Healthcare Care Academy at Morris Votech School. His family is originally from Chennai, Tamil Nadu in India. His father is from Chennai and mother, Seema is from Hyderabad. He has a younger brother Divyesh, a sixth grader at Central Middle School.
The Parthiban’s family was not able to make contact with their family, for about a week as the city had lost power and was disconnected from rest of the world. Finally when they heard from them, it was a great relief, but also were saddened by the massive devastation, which rendered people homeless. People were in immediate need of food, shelter and clothing. Their immediate concern was to provide help to the people effected in any way they could.
A massive clothing drive was initiated in New Jersey. Parthiban’s family immediately pitched in to initiate the clothing drive in Parsippany. With great support from the Parsippany PAL, PAL director Tony Bonavitacola, serving as a great drop off location. About 90 medium sized boxes were collected. VT-Seva, the local volunteer’s group pitched in to help in sorting and packing the boxes. A total of 300 boxes would be collected from different areas of New Jerset, to be shipped on a container to India.
All the boxes were transported to Central Jersey, which would be delivered to Delaware for their final destination.
Many thanks to the Indian community in Parsippany and surrounding areas for making this event a great success.
