At least four lakh flood-affected villagers of Bari, Dasarathapur, Badachana, Korei, Dharmasala and Binjharpur blocks of Jajpur district are affected by floods just after the cyclone Phailin.
large numbers of villagers are now spending nights on the river embankments as their houses.The district administration started relief works on Tuesday. “We have started free kitchens in all the affected villages. Motorised and country boats have been deployed to save the marooned villagers,” said district collector Anil Kumar Samal.
Korei MlA Pritiranjan Ghadai along with five other persons was rescued by an ODRAF team when their boat capsized in river.The situation is most severe in Bari and Binjharpur blocks. At Rathasahi under Madhusudanpur GP in Bari block, 80-year-old Janakiballav Rath refused to leave the village as nobody helped his paralysed wife Rangalata move out.
“We never before experienced such a horrible situation. We had got food items which we had thought to be enough, but later we found that the stock was inadequate,” a woman said on Tuesday while sitting in a makeshift tent on the river embankment. “Even the relatively well-off ones are queuing for food. That shocked me. In the worst-hit areas little can be done until the water recedes.
Nobody is sure how long that will take. There are several variables; the land is lower than the river, a thick layer of floodwater silt is preventing drainage,” said Jagabandhu Jena, a retired teacher of Bari.
Social worker Manzoor Ali on Tuesday provided relief materials to the flood-affected villagers under Dasarathour block.