Ravaging floods: 22 lakh affected; 2 dead, including 4-year-old boy; senior officials keep strict vigil

Kolkata: More than 22 lakh people have been affected and two, including a child, were killed in South Bengal districts with the state facing "man-made floods" for the second time within a couple of months due to heavy release of water from reservoirs of the Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC).

With the release of water above the "water holding capacities" of rivers, including Damodar, Rupnarayan and Ajay, the situation is threatening to turn worse in South Bengal districts like Howrah, Hooghly, Bankura, Purulia, East and West Burdwan and East and West Midnapore where more than one lakh houses have already been damaged. Around four lakh people have been evacuated and two lakh given shelter in 1,500 relief camps. Most of these areas were badly affected during floods in July end and beginning of August when DVC had released 1.12 lakh cusec of water. This time, it went up to 1.50 lakh cusec till 8.15 am on Friday, though it was reduced by 25000 cusec in the evening.

This comes when embankments at nearly 20 different locations have been damaged at Arambagh and Khanakul in Hooghly, Ghatal in West Midnapore and Udaynarayanpur in Howrah leaving villages after villages heavily inundated with the DVC allegedly "increasing" the release of water up to 1.50 lakh cusec. Barjora and Sonamukhi areas in Bankura were also badly hit.

At the same time, areas including Nanoor in Birbhum, and Ketugram and Ausgram in East Burdwan have been flooded following six breaches on embankments with the release of around 1.20 lakh cusec water from Sikta Barrage in Jharkhand leaving river Ajay to flow above the "extreme danger level". The state government is assuming that Khanakul, Amta, Udaynarayanpur and Ghatal will be the most affected areas due to the flood.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee condemned the "irresponsible attitude" of the DVC stating that it is a man-made flood just because of the rampant release of water from the reservoirs. "They have released water at 3 in the morning when people were asleep, without any prior information to the state and it led to floods ahead of Durga Puja. It is sad and I condemn such a move when the water holding capacity of the reservoirs has declined as no dredging was undertaken in the past 50 years," she said. Banerjee is herself monitoring the situation and often taking stock of the situation from Chief Secretary HK Dwivedi.

Assessing the threat and the deteriorating condition, the state government has urged the Indian Army to keep more columns of their jawans on standby when already eight columns are busy rescuing people in Howrah, Hooghly and West Burdwan. Eight more NDRF teams have reached from Delhi to join the rescue work. Already 25 teams of NDRF and 24 of SDRF are fighting in the affected districts to save the lives of people. More than 200 boats and speed boats are operating in flood-affected areas.

Army had to be deployed in Asansol that witnessed around 345 mm rainfall on Wednesday. Three columns of the Indian Army were pressed into action in Asansol from Panagarh. The situation there is improving as the water has started receding. NDRF teams are still working in Barabani and Raniganj areas.

Dwivedi said: "The flood is due to the release of water by the DVC. The release of water was increased within a short span of time. The DVC system released 49,000 cusec water at noon on Thursday. It increased the release to 1 lakh cusec at 1 pm on the same day. On Friday, the release was about 1.50 lakh cusec and in the evening, it was reduced by just 25,000 cusec. Similarly, the water level in river Ajay has gone up with the release of 80,000 cusec water from Sikta Barrage in the wee hours and it was increased to 1.20 lakh cusec at 9.45 pm."

The state government has already distributed 6 lakh tarpaulins and 2,000 kg special GR rice. Another 10 lakh tarpaulins have been kept ready in stock.

It was at Ghatal in East Midnapore where two persons, including a four-year-old boy Soumyadip Chanak, died when their house collapsed in the heavily inundated Gambhirnagar area.

Senior IAS and WBCS officers are manning the round-the-clock control room at Nabanna and maintaining coordination with the integrated command control rooms in the districts. The Chief Secretary also held a video conference with the district authorities to review the situation.

State Power minister Aroop Biswas took a review of the power situation in the affected districts through video conference almost every hour.

DVC authorities have stated that normal operations in the power stations in Bengal and Jharkhand have been severely affected due to unprecedented rainfall and inclement weather in the last 48 hours. Constraints in coal supply and transportation are also affecting the same.