127 killed, lakhs homeless as flood situation turns grim in UP, Bihar

NDRF teams rushed to marooned areas for relief operation

VARANASI: Swollen Ganga upset lives of five lakh people in 424 villages of three eastern UP villages, while the river began receding in Patna though 24 of Bihar’s districts continued to be under water on Wednesday.

Two people perished in the last 24 hours in Uttar Pradesh which had 150 villages completely marooned, even as the death toll in Bihar rose to 127 with 29.71 lakh people in 4,222 villages and 146 talukas being affected in the deluge caused by rivers Ganga, Sone, Punpun, Burhi Gandak, Ghaghra and Kosi.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi reached out to the people in his parliamentary constituency Varanasi, tweeting his office “is closely monitoring the situation & is in touch with local authorities”.

NDRF teams have been sent to Varanasi, besides Allahabad, Ghazipur and Ballia, UP relief commissioner DK Singh said. A total of 8.7 lakh people in 987 villages were affected by the flood in that state. “Flood waters have affected two more districts—Mirzapur and Mahoba. Now, 28 districts of the state are affected,” he added.

The Ganga touched danger mark in Kanpur district’s villages of Katari area, prompting authorities to issue an alert and shift residents to safer places.

In three eastern UP districts, including Varanasi, 127 mud houses and 984 huts were devastated. Thousands of hectares of crops were flooded.

In Bihar’s Bhojpur district, authorities took 17 hours—after an intervention by the state disaster management brass—to evacuate a heavily-pregnant woman from flood-affected Sinha village. Seema Devi, 22, was rushed to the district hospital. In Patna, the Central Water Commission predicted a six-cm decrease in the level of the Ganga by Thursday morning.

Authorities in Bihar said they evacuated 2.82 lakh people so far. A total of 778 relief camps were being run in the flood-hit areas, giving shelter to 5,99,606 people. The most affected districts were Patna, Bhagalpur, Munger and Buxar.

Rising waters in Varanasi have affected 1.97 lakh people of 124 villages. “Of these, 59 villages are marooned. The flood has affected around 30,900 hectares of crops and devastated 107 mud houses and damaged 745 huts,” a top official said. The situation was still worse in Ghazipur, where the flood affected 259 villages, disrupting the life of 2.24 lakh people. Crops were submerged on 27,000 hectares of agricultural land. Flood has also hit life in 41 villages of the adjoining Chandauli district, where 16 flood outposts have been set up.