KALABURAGI: A young mother of a one-month-old infant, accompanied by her family members, spent an entire night in the upper portion of their residence in Samkhed Thanda, located in Sedam taluk of Kalaburagi district, even as the village was inundated by the overflowing Kagina river.
With water surrounding their homes, they were unable to venture outside. It was only the following day, after noon, that the State Disaster Rescue Force (SDRF) successfully extricated them. However, Sedam Tahasildar Shreyank Dhanashri said that they had only spent three hours in the upper quarters before the rescue team chanced upon them and shifted them to a care centre in Malkhed.
The Kagina river was in spate, exacerbating flooding and rainfall. This negatively affected many villages in Kalaburagi district. In a separate incident, some villagers from Kadaboor village in Chittapur taluk resisted relocation to the care centre situated at Morarji Desai School in Wadi, despite their village being submerged by the Kagina and Bhima rivers.
Shahabad DSP Shankar Gowda Patil, who led the rescue team to Kadaboor, reported that many villagers - although floodwaters had entered their homes, were reluctant to leave. They expressed their concerns, contending that as Navaratri had begun, they had placed a deepa (lamp) before their deity and felt compelled to tend to it for the entirety of the nine days.
Following this, they were forcibly relocated to a care centre at Morarji Desai School in Wadi. The rescue team successfully moved 350 people from Kadaboor to the care centre, according to Patil.