Skype calls to Tamil Nadu are now free #ChennaiRains

Skype has announced that it's making calls to landlines and mobiles in Tamil Nadu free of charge for the next few days. On a blog post published on December 3, the Skype team writes:

"In light of the devastating floods in Chennai - and the subsequent impact to the local communications infrastructure - with immediate effect we are making all international calls to landlines and mobiles into Tamil Nadu free of charge for the next few days.

Since we don't know the full extent of the devastation, we want to help provide people with alternative methods of communication to reach friends and family in the region during this difficult time." Users can call landlines and mobiles through the Skype app on their smartphones.

The blog post has also been translated -- rather thoughtfully -- into Hindi and Tamil.

Skype joins a long line of companies reaching out to help Tamil Nadu as the state grapples with the heaviest rains it has seen in over 100 years. Before this move, Facebook had made it possible for users to mark themselves safe and Google has a crisis response page with resources, tweets, news and helpline numbers.

Telecom majors like Airtel, Reliance and Vodafone are offering free talktime and mobile data in Chennai; food delivery startup Zomato announced that the company would buy the same quantity of food for Tamil Nadu flood victims for every meal purchased through Zomato; healthcare discovery platform Practo released a list of verified doctors who can lend their services to those affected.