A YORK Hospital doctor and her family have been stranded by devastating flooding while on holiday in India’s stricken state Kerala.

Eye doctor Divya Venugopal, her husband, Professor Sunil Sahadev, and their children, Archbishop Holgate CE School student Gaurie, 14, and St Wilfrid’s RC Primary School pupil Gautham, 10, are unable to fly home because their departure airport was swamped during the heaviest monsoon rains in a century.

Prof Sahadev, of the University of Salford, who is chairman of the York Indian Cultural Association, told of the astonishing scenes they had witnessed over the past fortnight, including homes destroyed, and said floodwaters had been so deep that they almost reached the top of a flyover.

He said that in 2015, floodwaters from the River Foss came within ten metres of their home in the Huntington Road area of York but the Kerala floods were considerably worse.

“They are of a different magnitude,” he said. “Three hundred and fifty people have died and 150,000 people living in refuge shelters after their homes have been flooded.

“It’s quite grim but the sun has now come out and hopefully it will stay out and the floodwaters will go down over the next few days.” He hoped the airport would reopen by early September, allowing his family to finally fly home.

He said the people of Kerala needed help in rebuilding the infrastructure and their homes, and he welcomed the launching of a campaign by members of the York association to raise £5,000 to help the flood victims.

The appeal states: “Please stand with the people who are affected in Kerala state in their hour of need. You have the power to save lives and help people who lost everything!” People can donate by going to www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/yicakeralafloodrelief.

York cookery teacher Sharmini Thomas, of Strensall, said she was organising a cookery class between 10am and 2pm on Saturday October 6 at Joseph Rowntree School to raise money for the fund.

She said she herself had been out in Kerala to attend a wedding earlier this month but fortunately returned before the severe flooding started.

However, her brother Thomas and his wife Venus had been flooded out of their home there by four feet of floodwaters, and her aunt Ommana had had to be airlifted from her inundated home.

She said a friend of another of her aunts was running a refugee camp for people forced to leave their homes, and some of the money raised by the association would be used to help fund its work.

*To book a place on her cookery demonstration, go to www.sharmini.co.uk