The flood toll mounted to 36 in the five districts of western Maharashtra on Friday, even as the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) teams recovered seven more bodies from the affected areas and various rescue teams shifted 80,000 more marooned people to safer places in the rain-ravaged sugarcane-rich region.
As the teams of NDRF, Navy, Army, Coast Guard and other agencies continued the rescue and relief operations on a war-footing, the total number of stranded people that the various agencies evacuated from the heavily inundated areas of Sangli, Kolhapur and three other districts of Pune revenue division went up to a staggering 2,85,261.
On a day when Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis spoke to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and appraised the latter of the flood situation in the State, the floods began to recede in the worst-affects parts of western Maharashtra, particularly Sangli and Kolhapur, following the let up in rains and the discharge of 4.5 lakh cusecs of water from the Almatty dam by the Karnataka government.
“The flood situation is coming under control in the five districts of Pune revenue division because of two reasons. First, we have not had heavy rains during the last 24 hours in all the areas except the hill station of Mahabaleshwar. Secondly, the Karnataka government has released 4.5 lakh cusecs of water from the Almatty dam that has contributed to the easing of flood situation in Sangli and other surrounding areas,” Pune Divisional Commissioner Dr Deepak Mahaisekar said.
Interacting with media persons, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said in the evening: “The discharge from the Almatti dam was 4,30,352 cusecs in the morning at 10 am which is 50,000 cusecs more than the inflow. Now the discharge has increased to 4,50,000 cusecs”.