BHUBANESWAR: Many parts of the Capital city along the Daya river came under the grip of flood as backwater of the swollen river pushed into localities and into homes and housing complexes. Sundarpada and the nearby areas were the worst affected.
Residents could be seen wading through knee-deep water on Wednesday in an effort to move to safer places. The people were forced to evacuate their houses as water entered the homes and there was power outage since Tuesday.
Parents were seen carrying their children on shoulders even as Odisha Fire Service and Odisha Disaster Rapid Action Force (ODRAF) continued to carry out the rescue operations for the second consecutive day.
A woman who decided to leave her house along with her family members said, “We have been staying in the area since last seven years. Though we have earlier also faced similar situations in the past, this time the water level has gone much higher. Ground floors of most of the buildings in Sundarpada area are left inundated with snakes also entering the houses.”
A resident of Hi-Tech plaza said they were not able to visit markets and purchase necessary items like milk for their children due to the flooding in the area. “The online delivery men are also not able to visit us as the locality is inundated,” she said.
Odisha Fire Service personnel on Wednesday rescued a woman, Sashilata Behera, and her 10-day-old infant child from Pradhan Sahi in Jatni. The mother-son duo was then sent to a hospital, said an officer of the fire service department. Similarly, an elderly woman was rescued from Nischintapur village in Balipatna.
“Between Wednesday morning and evening, over 70 persons have been rescued from various areas such as Balipatna and Sundarpada. About eight teams having 10 personnel each are engaged in the rescue operations in the city, which are still continuing,” said an officer of fire service department. Meanwhile, the government has asked the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) to carry out de-watering in the flooded areas of the city.
Mahanadi backwaters flood Jobra, Sikharpur
Cuttack: Backwaters of the flooded Mahanadi inundated several areas in Jobra and Sikharpur on Wednesday. The backwaters entered the city through the sluice gate near Jobra railway lines in the morning leaving residential areas like Jobra Nua Sahi, Malha Sahi, Majhi Sahi, Tala Sahi, Dasa Sahi and Sikharpur Talasahi inundated. Residents had to erect barricades on the waterlogged roads to prevent any untoward incident. Even though the sluice gate had remained shut and three dewatering pump sets - each having 75 HP capacity - were engaged at the spot for discharge of drain water into Mahanadi, the backwaters of the river entered into the drains and flooded the residential areas. Locals alleged that the old sluice gate has weakened and does not function properly as a result of which, Mahanadi backwaters enter the city. While CMC Commissioner Nikhil Pavan Kalyan refused to comment on the issue, Mayor Subhas Singh said the CMC engineers have been instructed to drain out water from the areas.
