Water mayhem in city; BMC, BDA watch
Roads turned into streams, water entered many houses as rains lashed Bhubaneswar
Published: 01st August 2023 12:05 PM | Last Updated: 01st August 2023 06:17 PM | A+A A-
Workers trying to open the lid of a drain at Janpath near BMC office in Bhubaneswar. (Photo | Debadatta Mallick, EPS)
BHUBANESWAR: Mayhem ensued in several residential areas of the state capital as heavy rains lashed the city for around three hours on Monday. Even as streets turned into streams, life was thrown off gear at several residential areas.
Social activist Asha Hans recounted her ordeal as she drove for two hours through heavily waterlogged roads while returning to her home at Satya Nagar only to find knee-deep water in the first floor of her house. The workers’ quarters in her house was completely inundated.
“At least 13 people including the workers reside in my house. One of them is paralysed. Nobody can stay downstairs today because everything including our kitchen is under knee-deep water and there are scorpions everywhere,” said Hans, who expressed disappointment at the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC)’s lack of preparedness to deal with urban flooding.
Stating the drains in the area were not desilted prior to monsoon, she said this is the first time after the 1999 Super Cyclone that water has entered the area at such scale.
Around six km away at Sasan Padia, the drains were recently cleaned. Yet, sewers overflowed and there was a backflow into houses. “There is water in the first floor of my house including the kitchen. Everything including our vessels, clothes and my children’s books are floating,” said Smita Mohanty, a local. Till late evening, BMC officials had not reached the area. Smita said although the drains were cleaned, BMC workers had dumped the debris on the roadside which flowed back into the drains due to rains.
In Old Town, rainwater gushed into the sanctum sanctorum of 11th-century Lingaraj temple, partially submerging the ‘linga’. Temple priests said as the ‘Paduka Kunda’ on the shrine premises which is connected to the ‘Garbha Gruha’ was overflowing, water from it entered the sanctum sanctorum. In almost all the lanes leading to the shrine, water level rose to such an extent that it submerged cars parked on roads.
At Forest Park, Chandrasekharpur, SUM Hospital Chhack and other developed areas, streams of muddy water flowed on the wide roads making it difficult for locals to step out. With several residents taking to Twitter to post photographs of flooded houses, roads expressing disappointment over an ill-prepared BMC, hashtag #Bhubaneswar was trending on the platform for over an hour in the evening.
