Many safety walls along the different rivers in Dehradun collapsed, while some houses collapsed or were partially damaged due to intermittent moderate to rather heavy rainfall being experienced here for the last few days. Intermittent rain and showers have thrown life out of gear for those living in low lying areas.
In view of this, Dehradun district magistrate BVRC Purushottam inspected affected areas like Bhagat Singh Colony, Upper Rajiv Nagar and Sanjay Colony on Wednesday and issued necessary instructions to the officers of Irrigation, PWD and other departments. The rain has increased water flow in Rispana, Bindal and other rivers.
Purushottam said that disaster control centre has received several reports of water entering homes and shops, collapse of safety walls along rivers, damage to roads, houses, government buildings, boundary walls of several schools in the last few days from Kalsi, Chakrata, Vikasnagar and other remotest areas of the district.
He further said that this is the first rain of the monsoon season and had cost Rs 8.5 crore in damage to Government and public properties in the district.
The irrigation engineers were directed to take steps preventing land erosion by constructing safety walls along the rivers. Temporary safety walls need to be constructed in areas where the construction cannot be completed now. Erosion has affected areas including Kabadi Bazaar, Kargi and Chandra Shekhar Azad Nagar, New Patelnagar with around 20 shops located in these areas being affected. The width of the Bindal River was around 100 metres but this has decreased due to encroachments.
Due to increase in water flow of Bindal River, residents around Santowali valley have been affected by collapse of safety walls constructed by the irrigation department earlier.
The irrigation department executive engineer said that works related to safety walls along the rivers have been intensified in the district. Purushottam appealed the residents to work voluntarily for completing construction of safety walls in consultation with the contractors.