BELAGAVI: National Disaster Relief Force (NDRF) personnel have been called in to rescue three shepherds who have been marooned on a Krishna river island for the past four days in Yadgir district of Karnataka.
The three shepherds from Melinagaddi village got stranded along with about 80 sheep after flood water was released from the Narayanpur dam upstream. Rains in the catchment areas of the Krishna in Maharashtra forced the authorities to open up the sluices of the Alamatti and Narayanpur dams.
The rescue operation began Thursday morning with a 22-member team from Hyderabad reaching the Melinagaddi island in Surpur, located about 120 km from Yadgir.
A district official said the three shepherds were surviving on sheep milk. “We are trying to send some food supplies to the shepherds. On Wednesday the rescue team could not reach the shepherds. The outflows from the dam cannot be stopped as the water has reached the dam’s highest level.”
On Thursday, the NDRF team did a survey of the island using a drone. The team is looking for alternatives ways to rescue the shepherds. The district administration is thinking of using a helicopter but the NDRF team is planning to reach the island by boat.