Days of rain caused a spate of damage, with properties worth Rs 10 crore destroyed and farmland flooded.
Post Date – 01:00 AM, Wednesday – July 12
Chandigarh: Rains in Haryana and Punjab eased after three days of onslaught but some areas remained flooded as the death toll from rain-related incidents rose to 15.
Six more people were reported to have died in rain-related incidents on Tuesday, bringing the total death toll over the past three days to 15. Eight deaths were reported in Punjab and seven in Haryana.
Days of rain caused a spate of damage, with properties worth Rs 10 crore destroyed and farmland flooded.
In Punjab, more than 9,000 people were evacuated from Patiala, Rupnagar, Mojah, Ludhiana, Mohali, SBS Nagar and Fatehgarh Sahib districts, officials said on Tuesday.
Most of the area was clear on Tuesday, helping those busy salvaging the wreckage.
The incessant downpour flooded homes in many areas and wreaked havoc on crops and vegetables. Ambala, Patiala and Rupnagar, the worst-hit areas, remained under water.
Rescue shelters have been set up in several districts in the two states including Rupnagar, Patiala, Mohali, Ambala and Panchkula, government officials said.
The eight individuals from Punjab were reported to be from Fatehgarh Sahib, Rupnagar, Hoshiarpur, SBS Nagar and Mohali. Mohali) area.
One of them, a 17-year-old boy from Bihar state, died in the Fatehgarh Sahib district. Another Mandi (HP) resident died in an accident caused by rainfall in the Rupnagar area.
Among those reported dead on Tuesday was a 75-year-old man who died after the roof of his mud house in the village of Badovar caved in Saturday night’s heavy rain, an official said.
Another victim that came to light on Tuesday was a 19-year-old engineering student who drowned in Rajpura on Sunday.
Harish hails from Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, and has been pursuing a BTech Computer Science course at a private university for the past two years.
Harish drowned on the flooded college campus, according to police.
In another incident in Punjab state, a young man was feared of drowning in the Chiti River, a tributary of the Sutlej River near Shakot, on Monday as he was preventing his motorcycle from being swept away. Another 16-year-old may have drowned in Budha Dariya near Machiwara, 35 kilometers from Ludhiana, on Tuesday, police said.
The chief ministers of both countries are closely monitoring the developments, officials said.
Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Hattar on Tuesday directed the administrative secretary in charge of flood-affected areas to rush to designated areas and oversee rescue efforts.
Punjab chief secretary Anurag Verma called a high-level meeting on Tuesday to review damage from the rains and coordinate relief efforts in affected areas.
The meeting was attended by Special Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister A Venu Prasad, DGP Gaurav Yadav and several representatives from the Army and NDRF. Verma said protecting the lives of the people is the top priority of the Punjab government.
Punjab has formed a rapid response team and appointed nodal officers to oversee the ongoing flood relief operations. Permanent medical camps have been established in areas severely affected by the floods.
An official statement said the chairman of the Punjab National Electricity Corporation assured the government at the meeting that power supply in the affected areas would be restored immediately.
The water level of the Bakrah Dam is 1624.14 feet and its capacity is 1680 feet, the Ministry of Water Resources official said.
The water level of Pong Dam was 1,360.04 feet against its capacity of 1,390 feet, while the water level of Ranjit Sagar Dam was 1,712.64 feet against its capacity of 1,731.99 feet, the statement said.
Meanwhile, the meeting chaired by the Chief Secretary of Punjab was informed that two breaches found in the Dusi Bund of the Sutlej River have been plugged.
The statement said NDRF has deployed 5 teams in Rupnagar area, 3 teams in SAS Nagar (Mohali area), 2 teams in Patiala, Jalandhar, Fatah Gar Sahib and Shahid Bhagat Singh Nagar each deployed a team to lead the rescue operation.
People in adjacent low-lying areas have been asked to stay away from the banks due to rising water levels in the Yamuna River at Hatini Kund Barrage in Haryana, officials said.
About 321,000 cubic seconds of water was released from the barrage at 9 a.m. Tuesday, officials said, the largest release at the site this year.
Several villages in Yamuna Nagar, Karnal, Panipat and Sonepat districts and villages along the Yamuna River have been put on alert.
People in both states helped each other rescue trapped people, providing them with food, water bottles and medicine.
“As citizens, we have a duty to do our part in this crisis,” said Deepak Madan from Ambala city, distributing food parcels in the Manmohan Nagar colony and clothes said.
In the hardest-hit Rupnagar district of Punjab province, some have joined forces with the government to help others.
“It is the indomitable spirit of Punjabis to come forward whenever there is a crisis,” said Parminder Singh, who is reaching out to those affected in the region.
Punjab Minister Laljit Singh Bhullar has been stationed in the Pati constituency for the past two days to oversee rescue efforts, according to officials.
When floodwaters entered the Gurudah in Taranguk village on Tuesday, Brar arrived there, carried the Guru Granth Sahib on his head and carried the “Shabad Guru” to safety.
Haryana Home Minister Anil Viji on Tuesday inspected some of the affected residential areas near the Tangli River in the Ambala Barracks. He asked the local government to do a good job in the resettlement of the people in the flooded areas.
The Haryana state government said it had transferred 730 female students from Chamanvatika Boarding School in Ambala city to Kurukshetra on Monday after floodwaters entered the dormitory complex along the beach along the Gagar River. Another facility.
Some of the worst-affected districts in Punjab and Haryana suffered power and water outages as authorities struggled to get things back to normal.
Traffic on some major highways has been severely affected, and officials say water has entered roads through farmland.
Ambala Police said traffic of heavy vehicles and SUVs resumed on Tuesday afternoon via Chandigarh-Ambala New Hampshire in Dela Brazil, following a temporary closure on Monday.
It advises light vehicles to use the Ambala-Baldev Nagar underpass and take the Panjokhra Sahib-Barwala-Panchkula.
Various vehicular flows on the NH-44 GT road through Ambala started to be disrupted on Tuesday.
However, the Ambala-Kesar-Hisar highway remains closed to traffic due to stagnant water, they said.
According to officials, the danger mark was breached at Dhussi Bund near Mandala in Shahkot district. The Sutlej River rose, flooding two dozen villages in the Kapultala and Jalandhar districts.
More than 20,000 acres were inundated with 3 to 4 feet of floodwater, officials said.
Shiromani Akali Dal Chief Sukhbir Singh Badal visited the flood-affected Banga, Balachaur and Anandpur Sahib districts of Punjab on Tuesday and asked the AAP government to announce a relief plan for flood-affected people.
