2015 South India floods
2015 Disastrous Floods / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The 2015 South India floods resulted from heavy rainfall generated by the annual northeast monsoon in November–December 2015. They affected the Coromandel Coast region of the South Indian states of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.[12] More than 500 people were killed[1][2][3][4][5] and over 1.8 million (18 lakh) people were displaced.[13] With estimates of damages and losses ranging from nearly ₹200 billion (US$2 billion) to over ₹1 trillion (US$12 billion),[7][8][14][15][16][17] the floods were the costliest to have occurred in 2015, and were among the costliest natural disasters of the year.[18]
Date | 8 November 2015 – 14 December 2015 (2015-12-14) |
---|---|
Location | South India (Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Andhra Pradesh) |
Deaths | 500+[1][2][3][4][5] Tamil Nadu: 422 (official, likely more)[1][2][3][4][6] Andhra Pradesh: 81[5] Puducherry: 3 |
Property damage | ₹199 billion (US$2 billion) – over ₹1,000 billion (US$12 billion) (unofficial estimates)[7][8] Tamil Nadu: ₹14,602 crore-₹50,000+ crore (US$2.2 billion-US$7.5+ billion, unofficial estimates)[7][9] Andhra Pradesh: ₹4,960 crore (US$594 million)[10] Pondicherry: ₹333 crore (US$40 million)[8][11] |
Though the unusually heavy rainfall in southern India during the winter of 2015 has been attributed to the 2014–16 El Niño event, in July 2018 the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) categorised the flooding across Tamil Nadu as a "man-made disaster", and held the Government of Tamil Nadu responsible for the scale of the catastrophe, which the latter had termed a natural disaster.[19]