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Politic-Economic-Society-Tech

India flood crisis mounts

Kamil Zaheer

More than 100 000 people were evacuated from their homes in eastern India on Friday as torrents of water released from a dam poured into already-flooded coastal plains. 

Officials said some seven million people had now been hit by the floodwaters, which claimed 39 lives and left more than a million marooned as they formed giant lakes across the state of Orissa this week. 

"We did not sleep all night. We kept putting sandbags at places where the water was breaking through or flowing over the embankment," said Narayan Chakraborty, a shopkeeper. 

Triggered by unusually heavy monsoon season rains in Orissa and neighbouring, upstream states, the floods have washed away 4 000 houses and damaged 18 000 homes in a low-lying area just starting to recover from a cyclone that savaged it two years ago. 

But Special Relief Commissioner Rishikesh Panda, who this week called the disaster as the "worst-ever flooding in the history of the state", had some cheering news on Friday. 

"Today the rains have moved to the north of the state from the affected central eastern parts," he said. "That is good, one hopes that the situation will be stabilised soon." 

Army vessels joined civilian rescuers in one of the worst affected coastal districts, Kendrapara, which was lashed by the "supercyclone" that left more than 10 000 people dead in 1999. 

Close to 200 villages and 181 000 people were sucked into the calamity as water which had to be released from the swollen Hirakud dam flowed through Kendrapara, causing eight breaches in two tributaries of the Mahanadi river. 

"The water outflow from the Hirakud dam is slightly less than yesterday when 33 gates were open. Today 27 gates are open. The concern is about the low-lying areas of Kendrapara and Jagatsinghpur when the water from the dam passes through," said BB Mahapatra, joint secretary of the Orissa government. 

Army boats 

The water was running 1.5m above the danger mark at many places in the two districts, and in Kendrapara 12 army boats were being used in the muddy, swirling waters to rescue the marooned and provide both food and medical relief. 

"The problem is that the villagers leave their houses only at the last moment when the waters start flooding in. We really have to persuade them to leave earlier," said army Major Sushil Kumar. 

Beside the rivers, officials and local residents battled side by side to reinforce crumbling embankments. 

"We are ready to sleep on the rooftops if need be," said shopkeeper Chakraborty. 

He moved everything from his shop, a stone's throw from a raging tributary of the Mahanadi, to his home which is a safe distance away. 

Aid workers said those marooned were vulnerable to poisonous snakes washed onto high ground, and at least nine people were reported to have died from snake bites in the past few days. 

"It's a scourge that accompanies every flood," said Basanta Kar of ActionAid. 

Monsoon rains in Orissa have been unusually heavy this year. The state received 820mm of rain between June 1 and July 18, almost double the normal level for the period. 

Officials said the floods had badly damaged much of the rice crop in Orissa, but had spared the country's second-largest aluminium firm, National Aluminium Co . 

An official of India's Central Rice Research Institute said the coastal rice crop, which accounts for about 40 percent of Orissa's annual production of five million tonnes, had been damaged. 

"Crop survival chances are hardly five to 10 percent in these areas," he said, adding that farmers would have to replant in ground where they had sown seeds just a month ago. 


source: news24.co.za, 20.07.2001

 


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