9 dead as incessant rains pound Punjab, Haryana; Army called for rescue operations : The Tribune India

PTI

Chandigarh, July 10

Nine people have died in rain-related incidents in Punjab and Haryana as incessant showers battered the two states for the third day in a row, flooding many places and sending authorities scrambling for rescue operations.

The Punjab government has ordered the closure of schools till July 13 while in Chandigarh schools are closed till Thursday.

Haryana too has ordered the closure of schools in some worst-affected districts till Wednesday. In other places of the state, the government has left it to the deputy commissioners to take a call on the matter after assessing the situation.

Tracts of land near the Sutlej and Ghaggar rivers were inundated while distributaries and major canals were breached in some places in Punjab and Haryana damaging crops. As water gushed into houses in parts of the two states, authorities raced to bring affected people to safety.

Breakdown in power and water supply in some of the worst-affected areas of Punjab and Haryana escalated people’s problems. Mohali, Patiala, Rupnagar, Fatehgarh Sahib, Panchkula and Ambala are some of the worst-hit districts in the two states.

The civic administration of the two neighbouring states gave out a call for help in rescue operations to the Army which pressed its Western Command’s flood relief columns into service. The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) too assisted the civic authorities in rescue and relief operations.

Punjab Police chief Gaurav Yadav said 15 NDRF teams and two units of SDRF have been deployed in the worst-hit districts to plug breaches and carry out evacuation and rescue operations.

Additionally, 12 columns of the Army have been called in for Rupnagar, Patiala, Fatehgarh Sahib, Ferozepur, Jalandhar, SBS Nagar, Mohali and Pathankot districts, he said.

The Army rescued 910 students and 50 civilians from a private university in Punjab after heavy rains led to inundation, according to an official statement.

According to officials, nine rain-related deaths have been reported in the two states, officials said.

Three people, including two children, died when their house was buried under debris brought in by a landslide in Haryana’s Pinjore area on Monday, Sub-Divisional Magistrate of Kalka Ruchi Bedi said.

Haryana’s Chief Secretary Sanjeev Kaushal told PTI that one person drowned in Ambala district. In Haryana’s Karnal district, a man and his wife lost their lives after the roof of their house collapsed early on Monday due to heavy rains.

In Punjab’s SBS Nagar, a teenage boy and girl drowned on Monday while in the Rupnagar area of the state, a person was swept away by torrents of water a day earlier.

A team of 74 police personnel specially trained in flood rescue operations has been deployed to handle the rescue efforts in Haryana, officials said, adding the state’s SDRF teams have been working tirelessly, rescuing around 800 people.

The meteorological department has predicted light to moderate rain on Tuesday in Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh. It has warned of heavy rains in isolated parts of Haryana.

However, the intensity of rain would be less, a weather department official told PTI. Between 8:30 am and 5:30 pm on Monday, Chandigarh received 110.2 mm rain, Ambala 181 mm, Narnaul 60 mm, Rohtak 46 mm, Patiala 47 mm, Fatehgarh Sahib 34 mm and Hoshiarpur 29.5 mm.

Chandigarh has witnessed record rainfall during the past three days.

On Monday evening, 1.81 lakh cusecs of water was released from Ropar headworks.

Since the level of the Yamuna river at Hathini Kund Barrage was rising constantly, people in low-lying areas adjacent to the river have been asked to stay away from the riverbank, officials said.

On Monday, around three lakh cusecs of water was discharged from the barrage, they said. Due to incessant rains in the catchment areas of the Sukhna Lake, two of its floodgates were opened on Monday.

In Patiala, floodwaters entered the premises of the Rajpura Thermal Power Plant on Monday, forcing the shutdown of one of its 700 MW units, officials said.

As the Sutlej river swelled, Ludhiana Deputy Commissioner Surabhi Malik ordered a temporary closure of dyeing and printing clusters in the city.

In Haryana’s Ambala, the administration sounded an alert and sought the Army and NDRF’s help after all rivers—Markanda, Tangri and Ghaggar—started to flow above the danger mark. Many areas in the district were waterlogged following a breach in the Narwana and Sutlej Yamuna Link canals.

At Doraha in Ludhiana, two breaches on a canal were successfully plugged on Monday morning with the efforts of the district administration, the Army and the police.

Heavy rains and floods in the Rupnagar area of Punjab affected traffic on the Chandigarh-Rupnagar highway.

As incessant rains for the past three days damaged pipes at Kajauli Water Works, Punjab Chief Secretary Anurag Verma chaired a meeting and asked senior officers to visit the site and submit a detailed report to him.

Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann visited flood-affected areas in Mohali and Rupnagar districts and appealed to people not to panic while assuring them of all possible help.

Describing the situation as “alarming”, he asserted the state government was making its best efforts in extending relief to the people.

A special survey will be conducted to ascertain the loss of crops and property due to heavy rains over the past three days, Mann said.

In view of the prevailing situation due to incessant rains, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar cancelled his pre-scheduled programmes for the day and summoned an emergency meeting of senior officials of various departments. He also held a meeting with deputy commissioners and took stock of the situation.

Haryana Home Minister Anil Vij visited the Tangri river area along with officers of the irrigation department.