In solidarity with the agonized coastal population, the tourism department will light 1,000 candles and 1,000 clay lamps in Kovalam as homage to those who died in the cyclone.Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala government has decided to cancel New Year celebrations as the state's coastal population remains in deep distress, with hundreds still missing after the November 30 Cyclone Ockhi.
In solidarity with the agonized coastal population, the tourism department will light 1,000 candles and 1,000 clay lamps in Kovalam as homage to those who died in the cyclone.
All official New Year celebrations, including the one at Kovalam, has been cancelled. Routine festivities like fireworks will be avoided, as hundreds of families continue to wait for their men who had ventured out to the sea on the day of the cyclone.
Tourism minister Kadakampally Surendran will light the first candle, remembering the people who have been affected.
Meanwhile, the data released by the state government and the Center on those who went missing remains vastly different. The Latin Catholic Archdiocese of Thiruvananthapuram gives a count different from both.
Defense minister Nirmala Sitharaman told the Lok Sabha on Thursday that 261 more fishermen from Kerala are still to be traced, besides 400 from Tamil Nadu. The Latin church says 317 people in total went missing from Kerala. The state government says 74 of these fishermen were found dead. Of these, only 37 bodies have been identified.
State fisheries minister J Mercykutty Amma, however, insists that only 143 fishermen remain to be traced, including 17 from Thiruvananthapuram district. First information reports do not cover these 17 as some clues are available on them.
According to her data, 1,116 people have also been rescued. And she asserts that there is no contradiction in the figures.
A Central team led by disaster management department additional secretary Bipin Mallik and fisheries assistant commissioner Dr Sanjay Pandey has visited the state to assess the damage from the cyclone. They also held discussions with chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan.
