Tamil Nadu has been reeling from its most severe rains in over 100 years. The death toll has already reached 188, and the ordeal is expected to continue for three more days.
The news about Chennai has been banished to tiny corners of front pages of all leading dailies.
Sujith Kumar, a resident of Chennai, has captured how thousands feel about this state of affairs, in a Facebook status that's been shared over 14,000 times in just 20 hours.
"Dear National News Channels, people keep writing open letters every now and then to you folks and you must be used to it now. I am from the city of Chennai - which is the capital city of Tamilnadu in India. The moment I say Tamilnadu please don't mistake that Chennai is in Sri Lanka, it's very much part of our country about 300 km from Bangalore. Wanted to let you all know that it's been raining continously for the last 10 days and our local channels are mentioning that this rain is the highest recorded in 100 years. Several people have lost their lives and water is only flowing upto to neck level and hence it's really not serious. I switched on the TV today only to find news about how Congress and BJP is accusing each other for the ED raids, last week was all about Aamir Khan and Intolerance, then about this great lady who is accused of murdering her daughter etc...each of these news are of utmost national importance and floods/loss of lives are not significant. I have seen several times in the past when toll free numbers are set, relief materials collected by each of your channels etc but cannot see the word Chennai floods even in the breaking news section which in any case is breaking lot of news which are irrelevant. It's perfectly fine if you don't cover this news but for heaven sake don't call yourselves National News Channel by any means."
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