NEW DELHI/MUMBAI, 25 June 2007 — Relief measures involving military helicopters are in full swing in India’s southern and western regions where heavy rains and floods since Friday have claimed more than 130 lives. Fatalities have been mainly due to house collapses, falling of trees, landslides and drowning.
Life has been thrown out of gear with road and rail traffic affected at several places and power and water supply disrupted in many areas. Hundreds were reported to be stranded in buses and trains across the flood-affected states. The army and navy were alerted to assist those stranded in submerged areas.
First heavy showers of season continued to lash Mumbai and the rest of Maharashtra for the second day, bringing the death toll to 80. The heavy downpour washed away the claims of civic managers in Mumbai and Pune of a hassle-free monsoon, as normal life was thrown out of gear in both cities.
Conveying his sympathy and condolences to those affected by floods and rains in Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Assam, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has offered central assistance to these states. The assistance was offered when he spoke to chief ministers of these states on the phone.
The worst hit states are Andhra Pradesh and Kerala. With several coastal and low-lying villages in Andhra Pradesh cut off from rest of the state, many persons were marooned. Army personnel joined civil authorities in rescuing people from severely affected Kurnool district. Around 85,000 people have been evacuated there and kept in 51 relief camps.
The situation continued to be grim there, sources said. The torrential rains damaged acres of standing crops and vegetables in many districts, officials said. A low-pressure weather system crossed the state’s coast early Friday, triggering the heavy rains, weather officials said. At least 45 people were reported killed there since Friday.
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy undertook an aerial survey of the worst affected Kurnool district in Rayalaseema region where several villages remained cut off. The chief minister announced compensation of Rs.200,000 for the kin of each of the killed. Pressing emergency operations into service, the state government has opened 95 relief camps across the state. With the relief operations in full swing, the situation showed improvement in Prakasam, Krishna, Guntur, and East Godavari districts in the coastal belt, officials said.
In Kerala, hundreds of families were in relief camps as many coastal areas remained vulnerable to swirling floods. Though there has been a let-up in the torrential rains, life there has yet to regain normalcy. At least 30 lives have been lost and hundreds left homeless with the state lashed by heavy rains and strong winds for the past three days.
Relief work is continuing there on a war footing, sources said. The state government has allotted Rs.2.5 million for the affected people in Thiruvananthapuram district and Rs.2 million each for the other seven affected districts for immediate relief, according to state Revenue Minister K.P. Rajendran.
Meanwhile, waterlogging was reported from several low lying areas in suburbs of Mumbai. However there was slight disruption in the movement of the city transport system, with trains running with delays of between 30 to 40 minutes beyond schedule on both the Central and Western rail networks. Flights out of the airport were landing and taking off with delays of about an hour.
Landslides were reported in Chembur suburb of Mumbai and in Raigad district. Wall collapses resulted in three people getting killed, while three others were dead after a landslide in Chembur.
Deaths were also reported from Pune, Nashik, Sangli, Jalgaon, Dhule, Ahmednagar, Nandurbar and Satara districts. Traffic on the Konkan Railway remained hampered due to the rains and landslides in Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg districts. Eleven crew members of a barge carrying sponge iron were reported missing after it sank at the Khanderi island, police said.
Traffic on the Mumbai–Pune Expressway was not disrupted and no reports of any landslides on the Khopoli–Khandala – Lonavala section were reported with the state government authorities stating that the government had taken all precautionary steps and wired the suspected rocks on the route to ensure that the road traffic on the expressway was not disrupted.
“We have been besieged with distress calls from affected areas throughout the night and have taken immediate action as and where needed,” said an official at the civic body’s Disaster Management Cell control room. “We are fully prepared to tackle the situation. So far there has been no major waterlogging in the city,” the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation official added.
However, residents of the affected areas had a different tale to tell. “It’s been raining cats and dogs since yesterday (Saturday) evening, and water levels are rising in several areas,” said Manisha Kale, a resident of Sion in central Mumbai.
A five-story dilapidated building in Grant Road collapsed Saturday night, killing two people and injuring four, police said.
