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Heavy rain, floods claim over 700 lives in U.P.

LUCKNOW: Leaving behind a massive trail of death and destruction, heavy rainfall and floods have claimed 710 lives in Uttar Pradesh, besides rendering about 1.56 lakh people homeless. Of the total casualties, around 200 people alone were killed in incidents related to house collapse and cloud burst in different parts of the State between August 16 and August 20 .

With the situation showing little signs of improvement and almost all the major rivers flowing above the danger mark, the Uttar Pradesh government has been hard-pressed to meet the demands of relief and rehabilitation measures in the 32 flood prone and sensitive districts .

Principal Secretary, Revenue, Balvinder Kumar said that Rs. 157 crore had been sent earlier to District Magistrates of the sensitive districts for relief measures and an additional Rs. 32 crore was sanctioned on Thursday . Mr. Kumar added that an ex-gratia of Rs. 1 lakh had been given to the next of the kin of the deceased as per the guidelines of the Calamity Relief Fund. Out of the 710 deaths since June 1, 2008, 540 people have died in cloud burst and house collapse with 77 others killed by lightning. Floods have accounted for 93 lives.

According to the daily report on rainfall and flood procured from the Revenue Department, Sitapur district accounted for the highest number of deaths — 56 . Forty one people died in Bahraich, followed by 39 in Azamgarh, Unnao, 40, Hardoi, 30, Pratapgarh, 30, Faizabad, 28, Gorakhpur, 28, Fatehpur, 27, Siddhartnagar 26, Sultanpur, 26, Sant Kabir Nagar, 23, and Rae Bareilly, 19. Fifteen persons have been killed in Kanpur Dehat district and eight in Lucknow, all off whom died in house collapse caused by heavy rainfall.

According to the report, 77,837 houses have collapsed with 198 incidents of house collapse reported in the last 24 hours.

A total number of 3,308 villages have been affected , including 674 marooned villages. Around 3,658 lakh hectares has been affected and the damage to public property has been assessed at Rs. 254 lakh.

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