After the supercyclone in 1999 and a severe drought in 2000, Orissa is now facing nature’s wrath again in the form of heavy floods in five of its coastal districts and many interior pockets.
The flood situation is likely to worsen further as more than 14 lakh cusecs of water was being discharged at the Munduli gauge station on the Mahanadi, upstream of Cuttack, late this evening.
The toll due to current floods in the State has increased to 29 with two more deaths reported from Jharsuguda district in western Orissa. However, there was no report of any casualty from the coastal belt where the low lying areas were still getting submerged with water level rising in most of the major rivers.
“The situation is worse than we had thought of. On Monday, we had expected that about 11.5 lakh cusecs of water will be discharged at Munduli, but it was likely to cross the 14 lakh cusecs mark by evening,” the State Chief Secretary, Mr. D.P. Bagchi, told presspersons this afternoon.
Mr. Bagchi said the situation in the coastal districts of Puri, Jagatsinghpur, Cuttack, Kendrapara and Jajpur was likely to be worse than what had been during the 1992 floods by tomorrow. He, however, said that the administration was on full an alert and all steps were being taken to cope with the situation.
Informing that water was being released from the Hirakud reservoir since this morning, Mr. Bagchi said the water level was 626 feet at the reservoir, against its storage capacity of 630 feet. While the inflow at the reservoir was 7.15 lakh cusecs, 4 lakh cusecs were being released, he said, adding that this was being done to maintain the level at 625 feet keeping in view the dam’s safety.
A total of 40 lakh people have been affected by the floods in Mahanadi and other rivers, while road communication have been hit at many places and vast areas of paddy fields submerged. As it continues to rain across Orissa as well as in the neighbouring Chhatishgarh, situation was likely to turn grim if the rains did not stop by tomorrow.
Two Indian Air Force helicopters were pressed into service for airdropping of food packets in the worst-hit areas this afternoon, and four more helicopters will be engaged in the task tomorrow, Mr. Bagchi said.
Two units of the Indian Navy are already at work – one in Cuttack district and another in Puri. Two Army columns, each consisting 100 Army personnel, were expected to reach Bhubaneswar tonight and another two columns will be reaching tomorrow to help the administration in the relief and rescue work.
A large number of people have been evacuated from the low lying areas in the affected areas. The Collectors of different districts have been given powers to provide emergent relief to the affected population for a period of seven days, according to the Special Relief Commissioner, Mr. Hrushikesh Panda.
Meanwhile, the Chief Minister, Mr. Naveen Patnaik, has written to the Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, seeking an ad hoc interim assistance of Rs. 200 crores for the relief and rescue operations.
While requesting Mr. Vajpayee to come for an aerial survey of the flood hit region, Mr. Patnaik has also urged him to issue an appeal to all concerned to donate to the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund for the Orissa flood victims.
Mr. Patnaik, who undertook an aerial survey of the affected areas along with the Revenue Minister, Mr. Biswabhushan Harichandan, has asked seven of his Ministers to rush to seven coastal districts – Puri, Jagatsinghpur, Cuttack, Kendrapara, Jajpur, Balasore and Bhadrak – to oversee the relief and rescue work. Five senior bureaucrats had been rushed to five worst-hit districts on Monday to help the respective district administrations.
The Chief Minister, who reviewed the flood situation in the afternoon, has made it clear that any laxity on anyone’s part in the relief and rescue operations would be treated with the severest consequences.
Adequate quantities medicines and disinfectants have been rushed to the affected areas to prevent outbreak of epidemics like gastroenteritis.
The situation was turning worse in the coastal region as the Mahanadi system was capable of coping with the flow of 10 lakh cusecs of water, while the present flow was of the order of 14 lakh cusecs. However, there had been no major breaches in any of the embankments of Mahanadi or its branch rivers till this evening.
A total of 56 platoons of the State Armed Police and 13,000 Home Guards have been deployed for patrolling on river embankments and help the administration in relief and rescue work.
The rivers in which the water level was above the danger mark or was on the rise include the Mahanadi, Kathjori, Devi, Kushabhadra, Budhabalanga, Brahmani, Baitarani and Subarnarekha. Apart from the coastal districts, the interior districts that have been hit by the floods include Nayagarh, Boudh, Angul and Jharsuguda.
