41 dead as heavy rain triggers flash floods in northern India
Uttarakhand closes schools, bans tourist and religious activities
At least 41 people died and more than a dozen were missing yesterday after landslides and flash floods triggered by several days of heavy rain hit northern India.
Officials in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand said 35 people were killed in fresh landslides yesterday after six died in similar incidents a day earlier. At least 30 were killed in seven separate incidents in the worst-affected Nainital region.
Five of the dead were from a single family whose house was buried by a landslide. Another landslide in the northern Almora district killed five people after huge rocks and a wall of mud demolished and engulfed their home.
‘Heavy’ to ‘very heavy’ rainfall over next two days
The Indian Meteorological Department extended and widened its weather alert yesterday, predicting “heavy” to “very heavy” rainfall in the
region over the next two days. It said several areas received more than 400 millimetres (16 inches) of rainfall on Monday.
Authorities ordered the closure of schools and banned all religious and tourist activities
in the state. TV footage and social media videos showed residents wading through kneedeep water near Nainital lake, a tourist hotspot, and the Ganga bursting its banks in Rishikesh.
More than 100 tourists were stuck inside a resort after the Kosi river deluged several areas. In February, a flash flood struck a remote valley in Uttarakhand, killing around 200 people. At least 5,700 people died there in 2013.
At the Medical College Hospital in Kottayam, bodies had to wait for post mortem yesterday as torrential rains and landslips across different places in Kottayam and Idukki districts killed more than two dozen people over the past weekend.
But even as searches are in progress for the last of the missing victims by the National Disaster Relief Force, the meteorological department has forecast heavy rains for today and tomorrow across the state.
Yesterday, Kerala also began opening up key dams in the state, foreseeing the likelihood of more torrential rains that can force an emergency opening of dams.
Orange alert
The India Meteorological Department has forecast “a fresh spell of easterly wave” to affect south Peninsular India, causing fairly widespread to widespread rainfall in Kerala. The forecast points to isolated heavy rainfall over Kerala.
The state government has given an orange alert for 11 of Kerala’s 14 districts for today. The three districts that are not on the list are Kollam, Alappuzha and Kasaragod.
Twelve districts have an orange alert for tomorrow. The two districts not on the list are Kannur and Kasaragod. On Friday, all districts except Kasaragod have been put on yellow alert.
Keeping in mind a repeat of the torrential rains in some districts over the past weekend, the state government has delayed the much-awaited opening of colleges to October 25.
Dams opened
The government also began opening up key dams in the state yesterday to avoid the situation of the dams filling up in the middle of floods, thus causing even more damage. In the devastating floods in Kerala in 2018, waters let out from the dams during flood time had added to the calamity.
The Cheruthoni dam in Idukki district, better known as the Idukki dam, was opened yesterday, by raising three of its five shutters.
The shutters were each raised 35 cms after giving three siren announcements, letting out roughly 100,000 litres of water
per second. The water from the dam flows into the Periyar river which may see an increase in water level by 1 metre.
Idukki dam has a water level limit of 2,398.86ft, and on yesterday the water level had hit 2,397.96ft. Idukki dam was last opened on August 9, 2018 in the middle of devastating floods in Kerala, and before that the dam was opened 26 years earlier.
Besides Idukki, the sluice gates of Idamalayar and Pampa reservoirs were also opened yesterday as they began filling up with the heavy rains on Saturday. The Kakki and Sholayar dams were opened earlier.
Meanwhile, Kottayam and Idukki districts that were most affected by Saturday’s torrential rains are still coming out of the shock of the death and destruction that led to nearly 30 lives being lost.