Mudslides and floods wreak havoc in Maharashtra as death toll crosses 110
Vaccination is an ongoing, dynamic process: Minister; India logs 35,000 cases, 483 deaths; Kerala rejects charges of vaccine under utilisation; Chennai to vaccinate people working at malls and markets
MUMBAI: At least 112 people have died in the western Indian state of Maharashtra, authorities said on Friday, ater torrential monsoon rain caused landslides and flooded low-lying areas, cuting off hundreds of villages.
Parts of India’s west coast received up to 594 mm (23 inches) of rainfall over 24 hours, forcing authorities to evacuate people from vulnerable areas as they released water from dams that were threatening to overflow.
“Unexpected very heavy rainfall triggered landslides in many places and flooded rivers,” Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, who heads Maharashtra’s state government, told journalists.
“Dams and rivers are overflowing. We are forced to release water from dams, and, accordingly, we are moving people residing near the river banks to safer places.”
The navy and army were helping with rescue operations in coastal areas, he added.
At least 38 people were killed in Taliye, 180 km ( about 110 miles) southeast of the financial capital Mumbai, when a landslide flatened most of the small village, state government officials said.
In nine other landslides in other parts of Maharashtra 59 people died and another 15 were killed in accidents linked to the heavy rainfall, they said.
A few dozen people were also feared to have been trapped in landslides in Satara and Raigad districts, said a state government official who asked not to be named.
“Rescue operations are going on at various places in Satara, Raigad and Ratnagiri. Due to heavy rainfall and flooded rivers, we are struggling to move rescue machinery quickly,” he said.
Thousands of trucks were stuck on a national highway linking Mumbai with the southern technology hub of Bengaluru, with the road submerged in some places, another Maharashtra government official said.
Meanwhile, hundreds of villages and towns were without electricity and drinking water, he said.
Rivers were also overflowing in the neighbouring southern states of Karnataka and Telangana where authorities were monitoring the situation, government officials there said.
In Goa, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant and Health Minister Vishwajit Rane on Friday visited rural areas in North Goa, where flood-like situation has emerged ater heavy rain over the last 10 days.
Rane who met North Goa Collector Ajit Roy while inspecting the flooding in his legislative assembly constituency of Valpoi, said that the state’s Disaster Management mechanism was non-functional, despite warnings by meteorological officials about heavy rain in the northern parts of Goa.
“I have issued directions to both the District Collectors to send Disaster Management officials to low-lying areas from where people can be vacated,” Rane said.
Sawant also postponed his online interaction with students on Friday, opting to visit low lying areas in Bicholim area of North Goa, where water accumulation has led to disruption in normal life.
“Chief Minister Dr. Pramod Sawant inspected the areas flooded due to incessant rains in various parts of Bicholim taluka today. CM directed the officials to provide immediate assistance to people in distress. 23 people in Harvalem have been rescued and brought to safety,” the Chief Minister’s Office said in a statement.
Seasonal monsoon rains from June to September cause deaths and mass displacement across South Asia every year, but they also deliver more than 70% of India’s rainfall and are crucial for farmers.
Flooding and Landslides are common during India’s treacherous monsoon season between June and September, which also oten sees poorly constructed buildings and walls buckling ater days of non-stop rain.
Rainwater also inundated a water purification complex last weekend, disrupting supply “in most of the parts of Mumbai”, a megacity of 20 million people, civic authorities said.
Last month, 12 people were killed when a building collapsed in a Mumbai slum.
And last September, 39 people died when a three-storey apartment block fell down in Bhiwandi near the financial capital.
In 2014, more than 150 people lost their lives in Maharashtra when heavy rains caused a hill to cave in, burying scores of villagers under mud and debris.
Climate change is making India’s monsoons stronger, according to a report from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) published in April.
The report warned of potentially severe consequences for food, farming and the economy affecting nearly a fith of the world’s population.
“Since Indian society is overall affected by the monsoon in a very strong way, stronger variability produces problems for agriculture, but also for the organisation of public life,” said Anders Levermann from PIK and Columbia University.
Last year, five of the most costly extreme weather events in the world were related to Asia’s unusually rainy monsoon, according to a tally by the charity Christian Aid.
The government on Friday said that no fixed timeline can be indicated at present for the completion of the vaccination drive.
The government said it is expected that beneficiaries aged 18 years and above will be vaccinated by December 2021.
Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Bharati Pravin Pawar in a response to Congress MP Rahul Gandhi and Lok Sabha MP Mala Roy’s unstarred question said, “The COVID-19 vaccination is an ongoing and dynamic process, which is being guided by National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for COVID-19 (NEGVAK) on the basis of concurrent scientific evidence.”
She said that in view of the dynamic and evolving nature of the COVID-19 pandemic, “no fixed timeline at present can be indicated for the completion of vaccination drive.”
India on Friday recorded 35,342 cases of Covid and 483 deaths, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare data showed.
The country now has 4,05,513 active cases and has witnessed a total of 4,19,470 deaths so far.
According to the government, a total of 38,740 people were discharged from hospitals and health centres in the last 24 hours, taking the total cured to 3,04,68,079 till date as the virus continued to infect less than one lakh people over the last 44 days.
According to the health ministry data, a total of 42,34,17,030 COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered in India, including 54,76,423 in the last 24 hours.
Kerala health minister Veena George has rejected the allegations of the state not utilising one million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine it had received.
Kerala lawmakers TN Prathapan and Hibi Eden had the other day said that the federal health minister Mansukh Mandaviya complained about this when they met him to demand an increase in the allocations.
“The propaganda against underutilisation of vaccine doses by ten million is baseless. The data will speak for itself,” the minister said in a statement on Friday.
“We are currently administering around 250,000 vaccines every day and the present stock of some 450,000 doses will exhaust in a couple of days.”
The state received 314,640 doses on July 15 and 330,500 and 554,390 doses in the following days, totalling 1,199,530 doses.
However, the statement said, the state had administered 1,347,811 doses, ensuring zero wastage with strict protocol compliance for storage, transportation and usage.
Currently, 12,340,371 or 34.77 per cent of Kerala’s estimated 35,489,000 million population have got vaccinated.
A recent sero-surveillance survey has found that 45 per cent of the state’s population has already acquired immunity through vaccination or infection.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had informed the assembly on Thursday that the figures show that Kerala’s response to COVID-19 had been remarkable.
Around 45 per cent people in Kerala have developed antibodies against COVID-19, as per a nationwide sero survey conducted by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
The national average is at 67.6 per cent. In vaccination too, Kerala is ahead of the national average, chief minister claimed. About 24.7 per cent of the country’s population have received one dose of the vaccine, while over 32 per cent in Kerala have taken one dose.
About 6.5 per cent of the country’s population have received both doses of vaccine, while the figure stands at 14 per cent in Kerala. Chief Minister said that if 70 lakh more people are vaccinated within two or three months, herd immunity can be achieved.
Kerala reported 17,518 new COVID cases and 11,067 recoveries on Friday.
The Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) has devised a plan to vaccinate around 60,000 people who work at 10 malls and 38 street markets in the city, officials announced on Friday.
“Regular shoppers too can get a free dose of vaccine if they happen to visit the malls/ markets when the vaccination drive is taking place,” the GCC said.