Landslips affect rescue ops in Kodagu

BENGALURU: Heavy rain leading to landslides and flooding continued to lash Karnataka’s Kodagu district, chief minister HD Kumaraswamy said on Saturday.

“Rains have been causing massive damage in Kodagu. The state officials, along with Indian Army troops, Navy divers are carrying out rescue and relief operations on war-footing,” Kumaraswamy told reporters here.

Kodagu is one of the districts in the southern state worst hit by the south-west monsoon rains since June first week.

The landslides and heavy rain have claimed six lives in the district since Thursday, the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) said.

According to the Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre (KSNDMC), the district received a maximum rainfall of up to 25.3 cm and an average rainfall of 11.9 cm over the past 24 hours. Located in the Western Ghats mountain ranges, the incessant rain has been causing landslips across the region, making rescue operations difficult.

According to local media, hundreds of people remain stranded on various hills of the district.

Telecom services, disrupted due to the rain and strong winds uprooting poles and snapping phone lines, are being restored on priority, Kumaraswamy said.

“About 60 Dogra Regiment soldiers and 12 expert naval divers rescued 873 marooned people in the flood-hit district, where overnight heavy rain caused landslides and inundated low-lying areas at Makkanduru,” a statement from the CMO said on Friday night.

The Army’s engineering task force deployed 73 boats, equipment and rafts in rescuing the people and escorting them to safer places in the district.

About 60 members of the national and state disaster relief forces and 45 members of the civil defence joined the rescue and relief operations with boats and equipment in Madikeri in the hilly district. The IAF, which could not airlift stranded people through chopper in the district due to inclement weather till Friday, is working to rescue people and transport relief materials, the CMO said.