The Hindu : National : Maharashtra reels under monsoon fury

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Maharashtra reels under monsoon fury

Special Correspondent

MUMBAI: After a poor start, the monsoon has hit Maharashtra with a vengeance, flooding large parts of Konkan and western Maharashtra since Saturday night and disrupting normal life in many places.

Rivers in the Konkan, Kolhapur and Pune were in spate and people had to be rescued from flooded areas.

A house collapse in Bhiwandi killed a five-year-old girl and injured nine persons, while a woman was swept away in Rajapur.

There were unconfirmed reports that two fishermen of the Devgad coast in the Konkan were missing and of four deaths in Kolhapur.

State relief and rehabilitation secretary Ramesh Kumar told The Hindu that incessant rains since Saturday night had flooded Ratnagiri, Rajapur, Sangameshwar, Khed and Chiplun in the Konkan region. Mangaon, Mahad and Karjat in the Raigad district were badly affected.

Water had entered houses. Boats were being used in some areas.

In Bendse village in Raigad district, about 60 marooned people were rescued by the district administration.

Three villages near Lonavla were cut off and the government had sought help from the Navy’s training centre INS Abhimanyu to assist the local administration, he said.

In Pune, the National Disaster Response Force was pressed into action to help in rescue operations.

Many dams and rivers were overflowing in these parts.

Heavy rains in Kolhapur led to water being released from the Radhanagri and Almatty dams. Twenty-five villages were cut off in the district due to the floods. Mr. Ramesh Kumar said the situation had improved by the evening.

But heavy rains were forecast in the Vidarbha region in the next 48 hours due to a depression off the coast of Orissa, which was moving in a north-westerly direction.

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