The disaster management system in the district which needs to respond quickly after the stormy incident was found in lumber. The fire brigades tenders found it difficult to combat with fire which struck at multiple places in Raipur district. The worst hit was Chatoud village of Raipur where about six houses were destroyed in the wild fire.
Meanwhile district administration has promptly acted after the incident and declared provide financial assistance to the effected ones. The district collector Siddhartha Komal Singh Pardeshi announced providing of Rs35,000 for the houses destroyed in fire incident.
The residents of Chatoud talking with media persons who were in a state of shock after the incident said that the fire was so much severe that they did not find enough time to untie their livestock. They had to leave them to die in the blazing fire. Fire Superintendent M Ashrafi while talking with The Pioneer said that about a dozen fire incidents were reported in Raipur yesterday. He accepted that fire tenders took more time to reach the spots.
“We had sent fire tenders to all places however due to harsh weather condition it took more time to reach at those places. However, we covered all the fires,” said Fire Superintendent. Fire incidents were reported at Chatoud, Samta Colony, Kali Badi, Ram Nagar, Ashwini Nagar, Janta Colony, Kansiram Nagar, Banjari Chowk, Urla and Mana Road.
The power system saw a total failure with shut down of grid system. The electricity complaint centre was seen flooding with complaints. Big tress and hoardings falling at several places in city made the challenge hard for the electricity department to resume the power flow in city.
District Collector Siddharth Komal Singh ‘Pardeshi’ on Sunday announced that the families who come under Below Poverty line (BPl) category and whose houses had been completely destroyed in Saturday’s night storm would be offered housing units under ‘Indira Awas Yojana’.
Meanwhile, the district administration had already rushed a team of Revenue officials to the affected areas where they have arranged for providing immediate relief to the affected families.
The District Collector had also stated that as per the Revenue Book Circular 6-4, a relief amount of Rs 35,000 is being made available to those whose houses had been damaged in the storm.
Pardeshi went and personally met the victims of fire incident at Chatod and Chapreed villages and assured all possible assistance to them while directing the Revenue Department officials to immediately distribute the relief amount to them after carrying out a survey.
It may be mentioned that the district administration had sent the Tehsildar and Chief Executive Officer of Janpad Panchayat in different areas of all the four development blocks for arranging relief works and providing other necessary relief items to the victims.
Pardeshi today afternoon visited Chatod village where a total of 11 families were affected by the fire incident during the storm in which three houses were completely damaged and eight were partially damaged.
The villagers told the District Collector that the house of Khelan Dhivar suddenly caught fire and that engulfed other houses in its vicinity which even affected the animals.
On the directives of the Collector, water tankers had been deployed for dousing the blaze in the village and JCB machines had been deployed for relief work.
According to Assistant Collector Sanjeev Jha, a total of five houses had been completely damaged and eight have suffered partial damages in Chapreed village.
Similarly, four houses had been damaged at Bhandarpur, and one each in Sankari and Ranisagar for which a report is being prepared.
Tehsildar Kailash Verma said that roofs of many houses blew away in last night’s storm.The victim of fire at Chatod village Sukhram Dheevar had been admitted in the Burn Unit of a hospital for treatment and his son is also undergoing treatment in the same hospital. He said that roofs of 41 houses had got blown away in Raipur city and a survey is underway to prepare the damage report.