Hummingbird News Desk
KOLKATA, 31 JULY: Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today took updates from chief secretary H K Dwivedi on the rain affected areas across the state and directed him to take adequate steps to handle the situation at the ground level.
The state government has evacuated at least 35,000 people from the coastal and riverine areas as a preventive measure to check any untoward incident in case of more rainfall. At least 32,000 camps have already been opened in the affected districts.
At least 11 people were killed in Bengal till this morning as torrential rain triggered floods, landslides and accidents in several parts of the district.
As per reports from the district administration, three persons died in West Midnapore. Pushpa Ruidas (55) was killed at Barmura village in Garbeta after a wall collapsed on her; Purna Chandra Das was electrocuted at Bir Singh village in Ghatal; and a snakebite claimed Madan Patra (55), also in Ghatal. A motorized boat capsized in Silabati river at Daspur following a snag in the afternoon. However, all its eight passengers managed to swim to safety.
The West Midnapore district administration has opened 212 relief camps, where more than 12,000 people have taken shelter. The link road between Keshpur and Midnapore is underwater. As many as 172 gram panchayats and seven municipalities are flooded and 20,000 houses damaged. District Magistrate Rosmi Kamal did a recce along with ADM (G) Sudip Sarkar and ADR(LR) Tushar Singla.
In Bankura’s Simlapal, one Abdul Wahab Khan (52) was buried alive when a mud wall collapsed. Roads between Bankura and Jhargram, and in Joypur, Kotulpur and Indas remain inundated. DM Radhika Apte said: “We have sent rescued villagers to relief camps.”
Riverbridges, causeways went underwater, hundreds of dwelling houses submerged and thousands of hectares of croplands gone inundated as the rivers continued to swell up following heavier precipitation in the upper catchment areas in Jharkhand in last two days and this prompted the district administrations in Burdwan East and Bankura to issue high alerts for a bunch of blocks.
The Damodar Valley Corporation scaled up the rate of discharge from its Maithon and Panchet reservoirs leading to a hopping increase in release of water from the Durgapur Barrage to 1.31 Lakh Cusecs at 9 am today, which though was reduced a little after a couple of hours but the authorities further hinted the rate to cross 1.60 Lakh Cusecs in the late evening hours as the combined discharge from the upper dams added additional 50,000 Cusecs in the mid-day today.
“The deluge is set to hit four Burdwan East blocks- Raina-2, Khandaghosh and Galsi -1,2 perpendicularly. For this, we have already issued high alert through extensive miking in those areas. More people are shifted to flood centres,” said Priyanka Sinla, DM, Burdwan East. State’s Chief Secretary today had a video-conference today with the DMs of certain South Bengal districts to take a stock of the situation. The district administration sources said that 900 villages in 102 Panchayat areas have been water logged and cultivation on 1.10 Lakh hectares have been washed away so far.
In Bankura, blocks like Barjora, Sonamukhi and Patrasayar have already seen water logging in 40 villages. Moreover, some localities like Koligram in Taldangra were submerged by floodwaters from Joyponda river gushed in. Shantashram, Korisunda, Paharpur in Indas was flooded due to the deluge of an irrigation canal – Deb-khal today. Special alerts have been sounded for blocks like- Onda, Joypur, Kotulpur and Bankura-1 after the Dwarakeswar and Kansavati rivers showed swelling trends further.
Today, a middle-aged mentally retarded woman was rescued from Joyponda river at Bansgeria village. The flood situation claimed three lives in these two districts and destroyed 800 dwelling houses since Wednesday.
Inputs from West Midnapore, Burdwan and Bankura correspondents.
Tags: #MamataBanerjee #BengalFloodSituation #NDRF
