Orissa flood

Orissa flood situation worsens

Bhubaneswar (PTI): Flood situation in Orissa worsened on Thursday after 43 new breaches on embankments in Mahanadi delta region submerged more areas even as the deluge claimed 48 lives so far.

"Fresh areas were inundated as the number of breaches in Mahanadi system, which stood at 100 till on Wednesday rose to 143 on Thursday," the flood control cell in Bhubaneswar said.

As villages were swept away by gushing waters from the breaches, the plight of the marooned people multiplied in the absence of proper relief and rescue operation due to inadequate manpower and boats, sources said.

What added to the agony of the flood-hit regions was intermittent rains in most of the affected coastal districts including Cuttack, Puri, Kendrapara and Jagatsinghpur as most of the victims were still on highways and similar open areas.

Though around 40 lakh people in about 6,000 villages in 18 districts of the State were affected by the devastating floods, the administration had only about 1,500 boats at their disposal for relief and rescue work, sources said.

Rescue and relief operations with the help of choppers had limited impact as most of the material were wasted as they fell into water and other wrong places, they said.

Naval teams and personnel of the central para-military forces continued to assist in the work.

Over 3.77 lakh people have been evacuated to safer places in flood affected areas so far with the help of air force choppers and boats, they said.

Listing the extent of damage as per preliminary study, a senior official said floods affected nearly 6,000 villages, while as many as 827 villages were completely marooned due to surging waters.

As many as 1,26,786 houses were found damaged so far, while nearly 1,000 breaches were caused on different roads due to gushing flood waters, badly affecting road communication, sources said.

Crops, in about 4.5 lakh hectare area, were damaged and nearly 12.5 lakh cattle affected due to the floods which claimed about 150 animals.

As many as 471 free kitchens were being operated to feed the flood-affected, while helicopters made 56 sorties so far to drop relief material and food packets besides rescuing people from marooned areas.

About 11.5 lakh water pouches were distributed by the relief teams and 4775 mt of cattle feed supplied.

The only solace for the flood-affected people and the administration was the falling water level in Mahanadi and its branches.

Water level in Mahanadi at Naraj near Cuttack dropped to 24.74m as against the danger mark of 26.41m.

However, a major cause of worry was a Met office forecast about rains in coastal Orissa.