The Hindu : No let-up in Orissa floods

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Sep 03, 2003

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National

No let-up in Orissa floods

By Prafulla Das

— Photo: Aneel Mishra

Flood waters have almost submerged this bridge in Badachanna, Orissa, and it is a tightrope walk for the locals who have to use the railing to cross the river.

BHUBANESWAR SEPT. 2. The five coastal districts of Orissa which are experiencing heavy floods since Saturday are likely to witness more floods due to heavy rains in many parts of the State as well as the neighbouring Chhattisgarh. The toll due to the floods has gone up to 17.

As relief operations were hampered in Cuttack, Puri, Jagatsinghpur, Kendrapara and Jajpur districts owing to heavy downpour, life continued to be difficult for lakhs of people in the flood-hit areas for the fourth consecutive day, with little hope of the floodwater receding. The quantum of water flowing through the Naraj gauge station near Cuttack was likely to cross the 10 lakh cusecs mark tomorrow as it continued to rain in the catchment areas of the Mahanadi in Chhattisgarh as well as the lower catchment areas in the State.

"The situation will remain unchanged for two or three days if the rain does not stop,'' the State Chief Secretary, Pratip Kumar Mohanty, said at a press conference here this evening. The inflow into the Hirakud reservoir across the Mahanadi today increased to 4.6 lakh cusecs as against 4 lakh cusecs on Monday.

As many as 40 gates of the reservoir had been opened today to release water from the reservoir.

The Water Resources Secretary, Bijay Patnaik, said that although floodwater had receded a bit, the Mahanadi and its tributaries were flowing above the danger level at various places in the coastal districts.

The rains during the past two days had already brought fresh floods in the Bansadhara river, he said.

With no let-up in the rain, sporadic cases of diarrhoea and gastroenteritis have been reported from the flood-hit areas. The authorities, however, maintained that there had been no death due to diarrhoea so far and the affected people had been provided treatment. A total of 128 medical teams have been deployed in the flood-hit region.

With new breaches occurring on river embankments, the number of marooned villages has gone up to 901.

The Special Relief Commissioner, R. Balakrishnan, claimed that emergency relief had reached all the marooned villages. Apart from relief material, a sum of Rs. 8.24 crores had been released to different government departments to cope with the situation.

The Collectors of the affected districts had been instructed to use the food material and money available with them under various welfare schemes and food-for-work programmes to provide relief to the affected people.

Meanwhile, one person was killed and several were injured when the residents of two villages clashed and exchanged fire in Kanasa block of Puri district.

The incident occurred around 1 p.m. when residents of one village tried to breach a river embankment to save their village from floods.

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