Bhubaneswar: Over 4 lakh people in 12 districts have been displaced due to the ongoing flood in the Mahanadi river system. Moreover, the Odisha government is ramping up its disaster management infrastructure in view of the IMD's forecast of a fresh spell of heavy rain from Thursday.
The Wednesday night was considered crucial for the Mahanadi delta region as the peak flood water was expected to pass through Jagatsinghpur, Kendrapara, Puri, and Khurda districts, Special Relief Commissioner (SRC) P K Jena said.
About 10 lakh cusecs (cubic feet per second) of water would flow through the delta region which may inundate more villages, he said on Wednesday. More than two lakh people in 10 districts were affected by the calamity on Tuesday when Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik asked officers concerned to ensure "zero casualty" in the flood caused by heavy rainfall due to the week-long low pressure and depression.
Jena said that a population of over 2.26 lakh remained marooned in 425 villages while about 54,000 people have been evacuated and taken to temporary shelters so far. The calamity has affected 1,757 villages and 10 urban local bodies.
The state government said that though the water flow at Mundali barrage near Cuttack slightly declined and reached 10.57 lakh cusecs by 6 pm of Wednesday from 12 lakh cusecs on Tuesday, a heavy spell of rain as forecast by IMD may add to the flood fury.
Keeping the IMD forecast of heavy rainfall, we are preparing for the eventuality. However, with a guarded discharge of water from Hirakud reservoir, the flow could be contained within 10.5 lakh cusecs, B K Mishra, the chief engineer of the Water Resources Department, said.
He said the water level in Hirakud reservoir stands at 626.14 feet at 8 pm on Wednesday while its depth is 630 feet. At least six breaches have been created in embankments of the Mahanadi river and its tributaries, while the officials could manage to plug rat holes in as many as 197 places, Mishra said.
With flood water inundating more villages, the state government has deployed more rescue teams of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), Odisha Disaster Rapid Action Force (ODRAF), and Odisha Fire Service. The flood-hit districts are Angul, Bargarh, Boudh, Cuttack, Jagatsinghpur, Jajpur, Kendrapara, Khurda, Nayagarh, and Puri, Sambalpur, and Subarnapur. (With agency inputs)
