Multiple agencies join hands to evacuate stranded people in flood-hit villages

Chandigarh: Multiple agencies have joined hands to provide succour to people stranded in the flood-hit areas of Punjab, with over 7,600 evacuated so far after water levels in Sutlej, Beas and Ravi rivers and seasonal rivulets swelled due to heavy rain in their catchment areas in Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir.

To take stock of the situation, Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann chaired a meeting with top officials and constituted a high-powered committee comprising three top officials of the state to supervise the relief and rescue operations on a day-to-day basis in the flood-hit districts.

Mann said 17 teams of National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) have also been deployed for rescue measures so that the flood-affected people can be rescued.

The chief minister also said that Indian Army personnel have already been deployed in the five flood-hit districts, where they are conducting rescue operations in coordination with the administration.

As many as 7,689 people have been evacuated and shifted to safer places so far, Special DGP (law and order), Arpit Shukla, said.

The officer said Punjab Police has set-up relief camps in the flood-affected areas where food and medicines are being provided to the evacuated people, along with cattle fodder for the bovines.

“Drones are being used to trace people for evacuation, and also to deliver food packets and other essential items,” Shukla said.

Twenty choppers of the Indian Army have been stationed in the state to evacuate and shift people to safer places, he added.

The worst-affected villages are in Pathankot, Gurdaspur, Fazilka, Kapurthala, Tarn Taran, Ferozepur, Hoshiarpur and Amritsar districts, while heavy rain triggered a flood alert in Patiala on Friday.

Chairing the meeting, Chief Minister Mann said that heavy flow of water from the hilly areas have created havoc in the state, with the Ravi river receiving 14.11 lakh cusec of water till date, the highest discharge the state ever received.

When severe floods hit the state in 1988, the figures were 11.20 lakh cusec.

The situation remained grim in many areas, where overnight rain compounded the trouble even as the flood water refused to recede.

Heavy rain also lashed Chandigarh on Thursday night.

The Patiala district administration on Friday issued a ‘high alert’ for several low-lying villages along the Ghaggar river following heavy rainfall in its catchment area and the opening of floodgates at Sukhna lake in Chandigarh.

Various Central agencies have been working in coordination with the state authorities for the past few days to evacuate stranded people from the inundated areas, officials said.