Flood Update VI from Water Initiatives Odisha
Flood Situation may worsen
Dear Friends/Co-sailors,
Today, we are sending out our Second Flood Update – another quick one - to inform you that the flood situation may really worsen. As you can see from the news we have pasted below, rain has hit many parts of the state yet again. While it has added difficulties of people who are taking shelter in difficult places under temporary shelters, the relief operations have also been affected.
As we write this Update at about 21.30 hours, we are experiencing heavy rainfall over Sambalpur, Cuttack and many other parts of the state. From alerts that we got hold of at about 01.00 hours, it was observed that the upstream and downstream rainfall over Hirakud between 8.30 hours of 13th September and 8.30 hours was 8.39 mm and 6.71 mm respectively. At about 09.00 hours this morning, only 5 gates of the dam were open but the Reservoir Level was as high as 629.19. The inflow at that point was 133824 cusecs and outflow was 108414 cusecs. At 21.00 hours, while the inflow had reduced to 125269 and outflow was maintained at a higher level of 112564, the Reservoir Level had increased to 629.25 feet. We are also getting reports that it’s heavily raining both at upper catchment areas. We are sure the dam authorities are keeping a close watch on the situation. However, we should stay alert as the Reservoir Level is almost near to the peak and further incessant rains can fill it faster than we expect, forcing them to open more gates.
Stay alert and take care!
Thanks and regards,
Truly,
Ranjan Panda
Convenor
Water Initiatives Odisha
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NEWS
Rains add to woes of flood-hit people in Orissa
September 14, 2011
Bhubaneswar: Fresh rains triggered by a low pressure compounded the plight of the marooned people in flood-hit parts of Orissa on Wednesday besides hampering relief operations.
The state government, however, ruled out any deterioration of the flood situation due to the rains.
"Though several areas have been lashed by rains, it will not lead to rise in river water level which is now receding," water resources secretary Suresh Mohapatra said.
However, people taking shelter under makeshift structures on highways were affected as rains and thundershowers lashed several areas of Cuttack, Jagatsinghpur, Kendrapara, Puri and Khurda districts since early hours, official sources said.
The low pressure induced rainfall affected relief work in many coastal areas located in the Mahanadi delta region, they said.
The focus in the state had now shifted to distribution of relief and post-disaster operations in areas affected by the devastating floods, which claimed at least 20 lives and affected about 22 lakh people in around 4,000 villages spread over 19 districts.
The meteorological department said rains were likely to continue at many places in coastal Orissa till tomorrow with possibility of heavy rain at a couple of places. Fishermen were advised to be cautious while venturing into the sea.
Maintaining that the situation would be normal in flood affected areas in a day or two, he said water flow at Munduli near Cuttack had come down to five lakh cusec from about 13.6 lakh cusec. It would soon drop to 3 lakh cusec, he said.
Though water receded from most places, some pockets in Kendrapara, Jagatsinghpur, Puri, Cuttack, Nayagarh and Boudh districts still remained cut off from the rest of the state, a senior official said.
Around 1.57 lakh people had been evacuated from low-lying areas and shifted to 275 relief camps, he said.
Officials were directed to undertake field visits to ensure that safe drinking water, road connectivity, power supply and other facilities were in place as soon as possible, the sources said.
The state government has also taken steps for providing polythene sheets to the flood-affected people while air dropping of food materials continues.
Officials said emergency health care services were being provided in the affected areas where around 400 medical relief centres had started operating. About 110 mobile health units were also deployed.
Health and Family Welfare Minister Prasanna Acharya said the focus was on disinfecting the water sources in the flood affected areas. Around 9,000 wells have been treated so far and more water bodies would be disinfected soon.
Around 10 lakh halogen tablets and over 15,000 ORS packets have been distributed so far, while over 12,000 people have been treated for common ailments, sources said, adding anti-venom injections were also made available to deal with snake bite incidents.
Source: http://zeenews.india.com/news/
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Kiss the rain when you can, because water and abundance are falling apart...(Ranjan Panda)
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Water Initiatives Odisha (WIO) is a state level coalition of civil society organisations, farmers, academia, media and other concerned, which has been working on water, environment and climate change issues in the state for more than two decades now.
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