Though major rivers, except Baitarani and Subarnarekha, have started receding, the situation in the low-lying areas spread over 25 km of hinterland of Bay of Bengal in the districts of Kendrapada, Jagatsinghpur and Puri still remained critical due to tardy discharge of flood waters from the marooned areas in view of the sea tide under the impact of a full moon day.
However, the situation is all set to ease from Monday, hoped Deputy Relief Commissioner Pravat Ranjan Mohapatra, adding the road communication to all the marooned villages would be restored in 48 hours with faster release of water to sea and 1.20 lakh persons still on the river embankments, roads and in other safer places would return to their homes. All the persons taking shelters were being given free cooked food in 168 relief camps, he said. Admitting that the misery of the marooned and displaced people in the affected areas had not ended, Mohapatra, however, said there was no increase in the number of river breaches, which was limited to 38 in various embankments in the State.
Mohapatra said that as many as 4.88 lakh residents of 460 villages still remained marooned while the affected population in the current rains and floods increased to around 33 lakh in 23 districts. He said that as per the preliminary reports, 5,313 villages under 1,381 Gram Panchayats in 134 Blocks and 27 Urban local Bodies (UlBs) were affected. Besides, a population of 7.13 lakh livestock was also affected.
While the human casualty increased to 29, the livestock casualties shot up to 97. About 3, 22,163 hectares of crop area were affected and as many as 29,842 houses were damaged.
Mohapatra informed that water level of all major rivers have started receding and flowing below the danger level except Baitarani at Akhuapada, and Subarnarekha which were flowing above the danger mark due to the rainfall in the upper catchment areas in north Odisha following a fresh low pressure.
Meanwhile, authorities of the Hirakud Dam closed two more gates following reduced inflow to the reservoir from the upper catchments. The outflow from the reservoir was through 22 gates by Sunday evening. While 1,67,433 lakh cusecs of water were entering into the reservoir, 3,71,790 lakh cusecs were being released to downstream in the Mahanadi.
Meanwhile, official sources expected the road communication between Banki and Cuttack to resume late on Sunday evening after the flood water of Mahanadi along the route subsided. The flood situation remained critical in 30 Panchayats of Banki sub-division of Cuttack district and in Kanas area in Puri district. A report from Koraput said two women of Dasamantpur block were swept away by the flood water of Muran river on Saturday evening. The bodies were yet to be traced.
Ends